


Aethersand

by LookBetweenTheLines



Series: Complaints of a Hero [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (Phone Sex), Action/Adventure, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Battle, Battles and Blood, Biting, Crystal Tower arc, Ear pulling, Friends to Lovers, Linkshell Sex, M/M, Marking, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sleep Deprivation, ear biting, explicit content, gagging, mentions of injury and death, potential shadowbringers spoilers, spoilers for ARR, tail pulling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 69,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27913174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookBetweenTheLines/pseuds/LookBetweenTheLines
Summary: In which an unorthodox meeting in the Twelveswood leads to a race for elusive aethersand. Meeting a living legend in the flesh sparks instant infatuation for G’raha Tia. Z’kila Tia, meanwhile, is simply grateful to meet someone interested in more than just what he can kill. Between the stoic Warrior of Light and an eccentric scholar of ancient Allag, an unlikely but inevitable friendship blooms, and added feelings leads to passionate moons spent in one another’s company.E rating for chapters 5, 7, 9, 10, 12 & 13CW for mentions of past self-harm are contained to chapter 10.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Complaints of a Hero [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1400026
Comments: 61
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for far too long, and it's not finished but I decided to start throwing chapters out because why not. Chapters containing explicit content will be marked!

Aethersand. _Aethersand!_

Rammbroes’ letter had promised a true adventure into Syrcus Tower, the legendary Allagan construct entirely of crystal full of tomes and tomestones and machina and technologies as yet unknown and all kinds of excitement. But what does he find when he arrives in the barren, unclaimed wasteland of Mor Dhona? A list of bloody chores. 

And not even chores simply of the mundane variety. No, these were mundane _and_ dangerous at the same time. 

G’raha Tia grumbled to himself as he tucked the chunk of ore away in his pack, hoping it would be enough. There wasn’t a speck more to be found, and he had looked plenty. The other hogs were keeping their distance from the carcass of the monster he’d shot down for now but he couldn’t assume they would remain so courteous for long. He began the arduous process of plucking his arrows from the thick hide, discarding those broken beyond repair and returning the others to his quiver.

More than once since arriving in Eorzea, G’raha had considered that perhaps he should have stayed in Sharlayan and let someone else do the legwork first before he got his hands on the inevitable font of ancient knowledge. But that would leave him a few steps behind those on the ground. Was all that untapped knowledge worth traipsing across the wilds of the Black Shroud after some elusive aethersand?

Yes, he supposed with a sigh. Yes it was.

His left ear latched onto a sound, distant, from the cavernous tunnel leading out of Urth’s Gift and G’raha froze. A voice, he determined, faintly singing. Crouching down behind the huge hog carcass, he watched the tunnel entrance to catch a glimpse of the idiot that strolled singing into hog territory. 

From the shadows emerged a miqo’te figure, probably a Seeker judging by the warm hues of the exposed skin on his forearms. He sang too quietly for G’raha to make out the words. Remarkably, the hogs kept a wide berth from him. His every step was soundless beneath his voice and his ears swivelled this way and that as he picked out potential dangers. He had a bow in his grasp with an arrow already nocked, but thought better of aggravating the apparently calm animals. 

G’raha pouted a little. He had come through less than a bell earlier and had been accosted by at least three. 

The Seeker wasn’t here to hunt, that much was obvious, but there was no other reason to come here except-

_Ah._

Rammbroes had sent someone after him. Perhaps he should have taken the time to scribble a note of reassurance in response to the letters requesting updates – currently all crumpled together somewhere at the bottom of his pack – but he’d had nothing to say until now; research took _time,_ by the Twelve. He hadn’t taken that long, had he? 

Regardless, he had an adventurer to play with now. But how to go about it? The bank beside the shallow pool was layered with a thick tangle of vines and roots between small waterfalls that he could conceivably hide among; had his plaything been a hyur he might have risked it, but so close to the pool the Seeker was sure to catch a hint of his scent. If the carpet of bracken and heather didn’t leave him vulnerable to the hogs, not to mention the adventurer’s arrows if so much as a twig cracked underfoot, he might have flattened himself to the ground and followed the interloper around on his belly like some kind of miqo’te-shaped serpent.

But no, he needed height; for safety as much as a decent vantage point. The closest trees were a little on the spindly side and provided neither cover nor height, which left him no choice but to grit his teeth against the falling water, scramble up the bank and the trunk of one of the great ash trees. Letting his claws grow out was proving useful after all.

He settled on a branch that provided enough cover to hide him from the ground but not too much that he couldn’t see it. G’raha ignored the crow perched just above him staring with wide eyes and watched Rammbroes’ sellsword approach the dead hog. He was assuming he was a sellsword, of course; what other idiot would agree to this endeavour?

The adventurer took one last look around at the hogs, apparently satisfied they weren’t interested in him before returning the arrow to his quiver and slinging the simple cedarwood bow over his shoulder. He continued to hum as he examined the kill, _G’raha’s_ kill.

His black coat was simple and unadorned, reinforced with thin leather and designed for hunting rather than battle. The way the sunlight dappled through the canopy caught his dark hair in a faintly crimson light, which had been styled to look purposefully unkempt. His tail was long and the fur grew thick and coarse, but even from this distance G’raha could see it was well brushed, positively gleaming with the same crimson hints. The adventurer cast a glance over the dead hog before moving his attention to the rocky bed of the pool beneath, scuffing at the loose debris with his boot before squatting down to rifle through it with his hands.

Ah, so it wasn’t G’raha this sellsword had been sent to find. Just the ore. G’raha caught himself and shook his head before his mouth could form another pout. No point sulking if there was some fun to be had.

‘You are too late, adventurer,’ he called down. The Seeker below shot up straight with a hand back reaching for the bow, ears swivelling at the way the dip in the land made his voice echo. He was on the wrong side of the hog and looking in the opposite direction. Perfect. 'Ah, no… you'll never spy me from there.' Technically untrue; if he turned around and looked up G'raha was sure he wasn't so well hidden. 'Just listen. The water-blessed mineral you seek has already been taken...by me.' 

The adventurer said nothing, scowling at the canopy while his ears flicked this way and that, desperately trying to locate him. He did, however, release the arm of his bow, content to leave it on his back. The sudden silence was unnerving after his quiet humming.

'But victory has made me magnanimous. A band of ixal in the North Shroud keeps a quantity of wind-aspected aethersand for the purpose of removing impurities from lesser crystals.' The adventurer's ears pricked up of their own accord for a moment, belying his interest, before he flattened them down again. 'I have your attention then? Good. Make for the logging grounds north of Proud Creek. This is to be a race.'

There was a tension to the adventurer's shoulders in the moment of silence that followed that had G'raha worried he would refuse. Then he sighed deeply, muttering something not quite audible under his breath, and then set off back for the tunnel at a jog. A hog that had wandered back over grunted at him aggressively but went ignored. 

G'raha grinned to himself and then slid back down the tree trunk, his claws leaving shallow gouges in the bark, and followed at a safe distance, bow at the ready in case the hog decided to do more than grunt.

By Azeyma, he hoped his sources were correct. He would feel such a fool if it turned out to be false and he sent the adventurer among the beastmen for nothing. 

*

Z’kila looked at his meagre possessions displayed on his side of the tent and sighed. For the most part he didn’t care that he was rootless; when he was on the road and hopping between inns and camps and any other soft and relatively sheltered surface, the ability to carry his every worldly possession on his back was nothing other than practical. It wasn’t until he (temporarily) settled and laid all of his things down that he felt somewhat lacking. Other than his weapons, his bow and quiver full of arrows and dagger belt, he had his journal, a bedroll, a spare set of undergarments, his tailbrush, the whetstone he carried for his daggers, his violin and his lyre. 

And that was all he owned in the world. Perishables like potions and rations he didn’t count. It made him feel half-formed in a way that didn’t occur to him when he was travelling. 

On the other side of the tent, his bunkmate was still organising an absurd amount of books, tomes and scrolls onto makeshift shelves and into piles. Z’kila perched on the edge of his cot, leant his elbows on his knees and watched the other tia fuss over the exact order of tomes in the tallest tower. It was cramped in here and G’raha’s things were encroaching on Z’kila’s side. Not that he much cared. 

‘Do you mind if I put this here?’ G’raha asked, setting down a small chest against the back wall of the tent without waiting for a response. 

‘No,’ Z’kila said anyway. He was trying to figure out why Rammbroes had insisted the pair of them bunk together. Perhaps for the simple fact that they were both miqo’te. He didn’t mind much; it was a pleasant surprise in a way to find out the disembodied voice in the Shroud belonged to one of his own people. Besides, the tent out by Saint Coinach’s Find was preferable to the dormitory in the Rising Stones. Sharing with one person was better than up to ten on any given night, and he was close enough to Revenant’s Toll that he could return easily if he was summoned. 

‘You should undress,’ G’raha said, standing up and turning to Z’kila with crossed arms. The tips of his ears brushed the canvas of the tent. Z’kila blinked at him. Not that he could be called in any way prudish, but he had met this man formally just that day. ‘I intend for us to wake early tomorrow, after all.’ 

Oh. Undress for bed. Z’kila gave himself a mental shake and nodded, grateful that his mouth hadn’t fallen open like some kind of scandalised maiden. Apparently he’d spent far too long out of the company of other miqo’te. He got to his feet and the two tias turned their backs on one another, but not before he caught the hint of a smirk on G’raha’s face. The little sod had spotted his misunderstanding—or had intended it. Z’kila grumbled in the privacy of his own mind and said nothing as he kicked off his boots and leggings. This was perhaps why Rammbroes had bunked them together. A little taller than his companion, Z’kila had to stand with his head bowed, which made pulling off his tunic uncomfortable. 

Especially now G’raha had planted _those_ kinds of thoughts in his head, and they had little choice but to stand so close together that he could feel the other’s radiating body heat on his back. 

Well, all the more to keep sleep at bay, he supposed. Nevertheless he retreated to his cot as soon as he was down to his smallclothes. Across from him G’raha first stooped to retrieve a tome, a brown leather bound volume with no visible title. Just like all the others the scholar had brought with him. And yet he selected it with such precision that he no doubt knew exactly its contents. Z’kila was further distracted by his tail; long and thick-furred with a red-brown hue. A tail to be proud of, for certain, if it wasn’t in such a tangle. 

‘Oh, just making a few last-moment notes,’ G’raha explained when he caught Z’kila watching him. ‘I can extinguish the lamp if it bothers you. I can read in the dark adequately.’

‘Leave it,’ Z’kila said. He knew it wasn’t comfortable to read without light and he hadn’t any intention to sleep yet. G’raha nodded his thanks and climbed into his bedroll, sitting cross-legged with the heavy tome open in his lap. The pages looked old and brittle, the musty smell intensified in the enclosed space. 

The silence was oppressive all of a sudden. Z’kila didn’t dislike the quiet; preferred it, even, when he was alone. But he wasn’t. Silence in such close proximity to another made him uncomfortable. He retrieved the tailbrush from his pack and set to work. 

The first times he had done this, his tail had been in such a state that it took bells to free the fur from knots and mats. It had been near dawn by the time it was back in a respectable state, but it had been precisely what Z’kila had needed from an evening plagued by nightmares. Panting and sweating, he had gone looking for a brush at midnight, so desperate was he for a distraction. Baderon had found him one without much questioning, though Z’kila dreaded to think how he’d looked that night for the proprietor of the Drowning Wench to give him a brush without so much as a _why?_

A moon later and his fur gleamed, a far cry from the mess he’d looked before. But that meant there was little work to do, little distraction to keep his head occupied and sleep at bay. In just three strokes the bristles had rid his tail of tangled thorns and grass seeds and tamed the fur. He kept brushing anyway. The motions kept him awake, at least, even if they no longer kept his mind occupied. 

Z’kila’s eyes darted up to his companion, where he sat hunched over the tome in his cot, eyes squinting at the tiny script on the yellowing parchment. At this distance Z’kila couldn’t even tell if it was Common or not. 

G’raha straightened his shoulders suddenly and yawned, stretching. Z’kila dropped his eyes back to his tail, looking desperately for a knot to untangle. ‘It looks good enough to me, my friend,’ G’raha said, his voice heavy with tiredness as he climbed out of his bedroll to put the tome back in its assigned place. 

Z’kila paused his strokes, cursing privately. He’d noticed. And now it had been vocally acknowledged he didn’t feel he could keep going without some kind of explanation. Which he was absolutely not willing to give. To ignore the comment and keep going, which risked questions, or put his brush down and feign sleep, which may well lead to real sleep? Neither was appealing. 

‘Goodness me,’ G’raha went on, climbing back onto his cot, ‘brush mine, if you want to brush something so badly.’

It was meant as a joke; his tone indicated as much, but Z’kila couldn’t help the way his ears pricked at the suggestion. A colourful array of swears and curses circled his mind at that. It would be far too awkward to genuinely agree to that offer. Strangers did not brush one’s tail. It just wasn’t done. But the idea of getting his hands on that tangled mess was so tempting he felt as though he could drown in the need of it. And he suspected it showed on his face by the way G’raha’s eyebrows rose. 

‘Go ahead, if you want,’ he said instead of spewing thousands of questions like Z’kila expected.

‘...Are you certain?’

‘Well, _I’m_ not going to do it anytime soon, so why not?’ He set himself atop his bedroll and lay on his side facing the canvas wall, letting his tail drape off the edge. 

Z’kila hesitated. He felt as though G’raha was testing him; everything else so far with him had been a test. If Z’kila succumbed to this particular (and he admitted it was a very odd) need, what would the other tia take from it? Would it secure a hierarchy between them in G’raha’s favour in some way? He shook his head and huffed. The delicacies of the position of tia were lost on him, since he’d been the only one of the Z. Well, the only one young enough to pose a threat to the nunh at least. 

He slid to the rocky floor, the luminescence glowing faintly, and scooched the two or so fulms to the side of G’raha’s cot. His own tail curled into his lap to keep from dirtying it again while his hands hovered over the tangled mess that was G’raha’s. This was a line of intimacy he most definitely should not be crossing, but, hells, the other tia had heard him now. He had already lost whatever game this was supposed to be. 

As gentle as his trembling fingers could manage, he laid G’raha’s tail alongside his own across his lap and examined the fur: each strand was long and thick, soft and downy near the base and growing coarser at the end, where it should. He took some kind of care of it, at least; washing it regularly if not brushing it. Z’kila set to work at the tip of G’raha’s tail, teasing knots free and untangling various seeds and vegetation, helping the top coat to shed. He worked methodically, climbing higher by ilms. He could feel a phantom sensation on his own tail with every stroke, the activity at once satisfyingly distracting and soothing. 

A quiet snore interrupted him. Z’kila froze and glanced up. G’raha lay with his back to him but his chest rose and fell with each slow breath, about as deeply asleep as one could get. Z’kila looked back down at G’raha’s tail in his grasp. It was a strange enough thing to be doing, but continuing while the other man slept would be a step too far. Stifling a yawn, he lay G’raha’s tail on the cot where it wouldn’t cramp. He couldn’t do anything about covering him up, and he reasoned that G’raha would wake on his own if he got too cold. 

Z’kila lay in his cot on his back for a time, the pressure on his tail keeping him from dozing off even if his eyelids kept drooping. He extinguished the lamp, but even in the darkness he could see G’raha’s outline, hear snores so quiet they sounded more like purrs. 

He envied that restfulness. When was the last time he slept like that?

*

G’raha woke to a chill across his skin. He lay staring up at the canvas of the tent for a moment, not quite remembering where he was or why he was mostly unclothed. To his right came a faint rustling and he glanced over to find the miqo’te adventurer already dressed in an intricate garb of black cloth and leathers, buckling his dagger belt into place on his hips.

Coming in flashes, G’raha remembered the previous night; this adventurer’s obsessive brushing of his tail, the flash of discomfort in his expression when G’raha mentioned it, and the strange but undeniably pleasant sensations of having his own tail brushed by him. It was an odd quirk, to be sure, and mayhap G’raha could get the reason out of him in time. They were sure to spend a great many moons in each other’s company, after all, with little or nothing to occupy their time until they could get into the Crystal Tower. 

‘I thought you intended for us to wake early?’ said his bunkmate, turning a mocking, lopsided smirk on G’raha. ‘Sun’s already risen.’ 

G’raha sat up and looked through the gap in the tent flap, where the light was filtering in pale grey. It could only be just past sunrise. ‘It is early,’ he argued, fighting the urge to pout as he swung his legs off the cot and caught sight of his tail. It wasn’t gleaming like the adventurer’s, but the red fur had all been untangled and brushed into place, and he hadn’t seen it free of thorns in several weeks. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember when the brushing ended and the lamp had been extinguished. Had he fallen asleep with a stranger’s hands on his tail? _How embarrassing._ He didn't even know his name. 

‘Come along, then,’ he taunted, a far cry from the shy man of the night before. ‘We have a gate to open before the day’s out.’ 

G’raha sniffed and set about dressing himself as the adventurer ducked out of the tent. The comment about early rising had been more of a tease meant to test the mettle of his bunkmate and see whether he would want to prove himself or be purposefully defiant. In this way, G’raha supposed, he had done both. Had he even slept?

The company of NOAH approached the gate with some trepidation. G’raha lagged behind the group a few fulms, eyes on the rising crystal spire over the top of the outer defences. After today...just a few more steps. A few more trials in the labyrinth, and it would be there, open for exploration. G’raha’s heart gave a hard thud at the anticipation of adventure—of adventure into the long lost Allagan structure filled with ancient history and technology. He had to fight the urge to skip a little at the idea. 

They came to a halt at the eight sentinels, great stone guards looming over them with their swords glowing with elemental aether. While Cid explained the subtleties of the defensive shields and how the crystal fangs were supposed to deactivate them, an idea sprung to mind. The power of the sentinels was tangible, so much so he could almost taste it. Like a vibration that only affected his brain. He couldn’t help but wonder whether the aetheric walls were present indefinitely and invisible, or whether the sentinels activated them when they detected movement. 

G’raha drew his bow and nocked an arrow to test his theory. The arrow flew; a lattice of aether materialised with a burst of silent power that made his ears pop. Beside him, the adventurer winced. 

He hummed. The arrow hadn’t been deflected or burned, as far as he had been able to tell; it was just...gone. 

‘Happily, the crystal fangs should spare _us_ the inconvenience of instantaneous annihilation,’ said Cid, pulling out the first of the fangs, carved out of a fire crystal. The adventurer’s ear twitched and he turned to give the Ironworks master a wary look. G’raha resisted the urge to laugh at him. Cid just smiled. ‘Allow me to demonstrate.’ 

The two in Ironworks garb spluttered their dissent and Cid waved them down. He approached the first of the defences, carefully presenting the claw to the invisible ward. The adventurer didn’t step away, exactly, but G’raha caught him slowly shifting his weight to his back foot. 

A ripple of red light spread from the point where the claw made contact with the invisible lattice before it tore itself apart with a crack like lightning. The stone rumbled and the two fire sentinels collapsed, shaking the ground beneath their feet as they smashed to pieces. 

G’raha couldn’t restrain the little leap of excitement that escaped him, nor the grin that spread across his face. The Ironworks pair jumped about with such theatrics that he thought his own must have gone unnoticed. On his other side the adventurer gave a little sigh of relief. 

‘Success!’ Cid announced, turning around to smile at them all. 

‘Well I, for one, am convinced!’ said G’raha, hopping over the step ahead of the others, who were all moving much too slowly. ‘Ready your fangs, let’s go!’ he urged. 

The big fellow had the honour of destroying the water-based ward, carefully presenting the blue fang in much the same wary and careful manner as Cid. The ward broke down with the same lightning-like crack and rumbling of breaking stone. G’raha was permitted to break the wind-based ward, which he attacked with perhaps a little too much gusto, like he was trying to tear through a tapestry. Nevertheless, the result was the same. 

‘The last one is yours, old friend,’ Cid said to the adventurer as the company stared down the fourth and final ward. ‘It seemed only right.’ 

G’raha thought that was a rather odd thing to say to a sellsword, especially considering he himself had played as big a part of gathering the aethersand as the adventurer. He supposed the two must know each other on a personal level and held his pout in check. The adventurer took the earth crystal fang offered to him and presented it to the ward, carefully ilming forwards until the yellow ripple spiralled out from the point of contact. 

And they were through! G’raha skipped over the base of the staircase before them, his heart hammering with nervous excitement. The Crystal Tower loomed above, so close now. 

‘The entrance is near at hand,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I daresay we may see it before the day’s out!’ 

‘Speaking of which,’ said Cid, stepping into line with G’raha, ‘I have a proposal for the next stage of the expedition. I suggest we send Z’kila ahead into the labyrinth with a band of handpicked adventurers to clear out any hostilities.’

G’raha's tail drooped. ‘Without us? I thought we were going to survey the entire structure?’ 

‘And we will. But consider: if the outside of the place is this well defended, can you imagine what we may face inside?’ He paused and G’raha looked away moodily. ‘Only a true hero can hope to brave the hazards and survive. Z’kila here fits that description better than anyone I know.’ 

G’raha was about to ask where they could hope to find someone like that, but snapped his head around suddenly to look at the adventurer. ‘Z’kila Tia? Who brought down the Ultima Weapon?’ 

The man he’d challenged and played with in the Shroud, he’d teased in their shared tent the night before. _This_ was Z’kila Tia, the name favoured by minstrels and town criers alike across the cities he’d passed through on his way to Mor Dhona. The man who had managed to infiltrate a castrum and brought down the Garleans’ secret Allagan weapon on their own ground, and was rumoured to be on the hunt for the primal Bahamut. 

The adventurer played distractedly with one of his braids and shrugged, refusing to meet G’raha’s wide eyes. Cid, too, turned to frown at him. ‘You haven’t introduced yourself?’ 

‘It didn’t come up,’ Z’kila mumbled. 

‘It didn’t come up?’ Cid echoed, and G’raha thought rather the same. Since when did one’s name have to be _brought up?_ ‘...Anyway,’ Cid went on, hastily moving the conversation away from the awkwardness, ‘we shan’t be idle. While Z’kila clears the labyrinth, we shall analyse the rubble here to see if we can understand how the technologies function. Your particular expertise on the subject will surely be more valuable here, don’t you agree?’ 

G’raha tore his eyes away from Z’kila’s profile to scowl at Cid. He was right, of course, but that didn’t make him feel any better about it. When he had fantasised about stepping into the tower for the first time, he had imagined being one of the first to set foot in the structures in thousands of years. He wanted to discover—to uncover the secrets of the Allagan empire. Not simply follow the footsteps of the hero that will open the doors for the first time. 

He cleared his throat and pulled himself together. ‘Z’kila.’ That was a weird name to be able to say, and weirder still to have the man in question turn his attention to listen. ‘Seeing as I won’t be accompanying you, permit me to offer some advice. Focus on clearing the labyrinth of hazards and contact me via linkshell once you consider the place sufficiently secure. Oh, and if you can avoid breaking anything along the way, I would appreciate it.’ 

‘Noted,’ said Z’kila. He straightened himself up and added, ‘Give me a bell or two to find the necessary hands.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Warrior of Light clears the Labyrinth to pave the way to the Crystal Tower proper and bathes in the company of G'raha Tia, allowing just a hint of vulnerability to peek through the mask he wears for the masses.

The ward came down, this one designed to protect rather than harm, and Z’kila steeled himself for the final push. His lungs burning from the bells of endless and intense battling with every creature imaginable from an undead dragon to a king behemoth with plenty of voidsent to keep them occupied in between, Z’kila forced down his own fatigue and launched himself at the giant form of a golden-skinned man wielding a sword taller than each of the sentinels outside. 

He ran with his comrades, blades drawn, ready to leap up to reach the giant’s most vulnerable spots. While most of the adventurers he brought with him stuck to the ground and worked to sever tendons or whatever equivalent this beast might have, Z’kila and a handful of others with the necessary agility leapt up to attack its chest, its neck, its eyes. 

Z’kila leapt up as far as his legs would take him and sank both daggers into its navel. There was no blood; instead a trickle of liquidised aether escaped the many wounds they had managed to inflict and evaporated in silvery tendrils. He felt the creature falter, one leg beginning to collapse. 

‘Hold on to something!’ he called up to those that had managed to climb higher than he. They stuck daggers and lances into tough hide or clung to an edge of jagged armour as the giant began to topple. Z’kila set his feet and gripped his daggers tight. 

The long fall gave him vertigo and the landing jarred his joints and made his teeth clack. Many blades, spears and arrows sank into whatever parts of the beast could be reached while Z’kila hurried to blink away the onset dizziness. 

The giant’s form began to glimmer and fade, exuding more of the silvery aether. Z’kila yanked his blades free and leapt off the form before it vanished entirely, leaving behind nothing but a rising cloud. 

A moment passed while Z’kila’s adventurers stood panting, weapons still raised, waiting for something else to happen: for some part of the floor to rise up or fall, for the room to spin or the lava to rise up in an overwhelming wave. When nothing did near enough everyone sagged, finally allowing the fatigue of battle to wash over them. Z’kila leant on his knees, not trusting himself enough to sit down lest he not get back up. He was covered in purplish gore, his gear stained possibly beyond salvaging. Perhaps he would jump into Silvertear as soon as he could get out of here, weapons and all. 

He lifted one hand to his ear. ‘All clear.’

‘ _Excellent,_ ’ came G’raha Tia’s reply through the linkpearl, the word sharpened by impatience. 

‘The scholars may come and survey the labyrinth and take a look at the Tower’s base, but I sincerely request that this be a flying first visit since I am in desperate need of a bath.’ 

A pause while G’raha relayed the information to Cid and Rammbroes. ‘ _Very well, an initial evaluation then._ ’ More impatience, but masked fairly well. 

Z’kila ended the connection and glanced around at the other adventurers that had agreed to come in exchange for a share of whatever loot they came across. Anything glowing was off-limits, not that adventurers had much use for Allagan gadgets, but there was a fair supply of very old but very fine armour. The healers gathered around an archer that had come under fire, but it looked as though he would survive and everyone else was arguing over their findings. 

‘Get yourselves out of here and washed up,’ he said, approaching the group. 

‘Can I take this?’ said a young hyuran woman holding up what looked like a tomestone that was no longer glowing. 

Z’kila shrugged. ‘Sure.’ He couldn’t see how any information could be extracted from a dead tomestone and besides, the place was full of them. 

He watched enviously as they left, the archer supported by two women in plate armour. One of the healers graced Z’kila with a wash of healing magic as she passed which sealed the scratches and eased the bruises that had accumulated across his body during the venture. He thanked her with a smile and a nod, feeling a cracked tooth mend itself at the back of his mouth. She smiled back and flicked her tail at him. 

The healing magic eased the injury-induced aches, but could do nothing about the fatigue-induced ones. Z’kila paced slowly in front of the staircase leading up to the base of the Tower, which was currently flooded over with lava. As long as he wasn’t expected to find a way up there today he didn’t care. Perhaps he could conjure up some interest in what they might discover in the Tower proper once he was rested and didn’t stink of voidsent. 

The young scholar appeared first, bounding onto the wide platform long before anyone else appeared. His nose and cheeks were dusted with grime, apparently having been rather busy himself among the ruins of the eight sentinels. He scampered right up to Z’kila’s side and looked up at the Crystal Tower with bright eyes. 

‘I take it clearing the labyrinth’s defences was no small feat?’ he asked, tearing his eyes away from the Tower with apparent difficulty. 

‘Oh, you know,’ Z’kila said with false lightness. ‘Just an undead dragon, a behemoth, a sentient bomb, three atomos and all the deepvoid they spewed out, a handful of vassago, a ghost of an iron giant, and an even bigger giant of a man wielding a shimmering scimitar.’ A fresh wave of exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him just thinking about the day. 

G’raha gazed at him with wide eyes, one scarlet and one sapphire. He didn’t look horrified by Z’kila’s awful summary, but rather intrigued. ‘The man with the scimitar, tell me more about him.’ 

Z’kila blinked at the unexpected enthusiasm but complied nevertheless. Cid, Biggs and Wedge joined them halfway through his explanation but didn’t interrupt, allowing him to finish his more professional report of the labyrinth. G’raha even whipped out a notebook and scribbled down everything Z’kila said. He was silently grateful for that; it would save him reliving the whole thing again for Rammbroes. 

G’raha was positively vibrating with excitement when he finished, adding notes here and there to everything Z’kila said, explaining everything he described and why it was present in the labyrinth. Had he not been so tired Z’kila thought he would have been more interested in it all. Or perhaps the passionate way G’raha spoke made it sound far more thrilling than it really was. Regardless, he made a mental note to ask about it later when he could pay attention enough to decide which. 

When he finished, G’raha gazed longingly up at Syrcus Tower. 

‘I’m glad you’re with us, old friend,’ said Cid, pulling Z’kila’s attention away from the young scholar with a clap to his shoulder. ‘I very much doubt we would ever be standing here without your help.’ 

Z’kila shrugged and tried a smile, which he wasn’t sure worked. 

‘Let’s get you back and cleaned up,’ Cid went on, surreptitiously trying to wipe the sticky ichor from his palm. ‘You deserve to sleep for a week after everything you’ve been through today.’ 

Z’kila didn’t know about that, but he was very much planning to head straight to the lake once they were out of here and G’raha’s ears pricked when he voiced his desires. Perhaps if he went for a swim and washed his armour he could exhaust himself enough to risk a nap. Maybe even a full night’s sleep if he was lucky. 

‘I might join you at the lake,’ said G’raha, looking down at his grimy palms. ‘If you don’t mind, of course.’ 

‘If you like,’ said Z’kila. He didn’t care if the entire camp came to join him as long as they didn’t try to engage him in too much conversation. 

At least journeying back to the entrance of the labyrinth was far less of a trek. Cid, Biggs and Wedge talked of the logistics of bringing some of the Ironworks equipment through to test the door of the Tower proper but with his ears drooping almost flat to his hair Z’kila could not focus on the conversation nor bring himself to care enough to even try. At his side G’raha walked with his nose in his notebook, flipping back and forth between pages while his eyes darted over scribbled lines. Mayhap he would take a peek at that notebook one day, given the chance, and see what theory he was conjuring up. 

He split off from the road as soon as the lake came into view with nary a word to the others. As tired as he was, he wanted to collapse into bed clean and his nose clear even if he didn’t sleep. The light footsteps of a nosy scholar padded behind him and while he felt he should be annoyed by his presence, he simply pondered that perhaps it was a good idea to have someone around in case he fell asleep in the middle of his bath and drowned. 

Silvertear was as clear and still as glass when he reached the bank, perfectly reflecting the scattering of stars in the sky smudged by wisps of cloud. Z’kila almost felt bad for ruining the effect. He paused on the edge of the jutting rock, one hand halfway up to his collar to begin the arduous process of undressing before he sighed. He pulled his daggers from their sheaths, set them safely on the rock to be cleaned properly with an oiled rag later and simply jumped in with all of his gear still on. 

The splash was louder than shattering glass, muted by waterlogged ears as soon as he fell beneath the surface. He let himself sink for several moments, enjoying the effortless weightlessness of the water while tendrils of gore and ichor lifted from his sleeves like dark smoke. If only the water would scrub him clean all by itself. 

Alas, his lungs began to burn before long and he swam for the surface. The fresh, clean smell of the air was delicious on the back of his tongue after bells of voidsent stench. Z’kila scraped wet hair back from his face and winced at the slimy, matted state of it. 

‘Oh what a glamorous life you lead,’ G’raha teased, kneeling on the bank with his bracers off as he washed his arms and hands clean of grime. 

‘Were you expecting me to have some kind of dirt-repelling forcefield so that I could look pretty all the time?’ Z’kila quipped back, pulling and tugging impatiently at the buckles of his own bracers while he tread water in as lazy motions as he could get away with. 

G’raha splashed water on his face and scrubbed with his fingers. ‘The ballads would certainly have us believe such a thing. _Such beauty in his destruction / As skilled in combat as in seduction…_ ’ 

Z’kila snorted, peeling one bracer from a sticky forearm. ‘That is not a song that exists about me.’ 

‘No,’ G’raha admitted with a grin. ‘I made that one up.’ 

He rolled his eyes, amused in spite of himself as he set about fumbling with his other bracer while his legs protested the constant motion of keeping his head above water. ‘You won’t abandon scholarship in pursuit of the minstrel’s life, will you?’ So he teased, but his companion could hold a decent tune in spite of his terrible couplet. 

‘How rude. I had an entire song composed and now I won’t share it.’ 

‘Thank you kindly.’ Z’kila scrubbed at his bracers, the ichor and gore coming off in stringy clumps but the water alone refused to lift the embedded stains. His gear was dark, the cloth and leather dyed black and grey for a reason; he didn’t think charging into his next fight in varying shades of purple would do him many favours in remaining hidden. He ignored the indignant pout on G’raha’s face and asked, ‘Would you mind fetching me some leather soap? And soap for me as well…’ he added, catching the faintly violet hue of his skin in the low light. 

G’raha raised an eyebrow, feigned offence forgotten. ‘Are you sure?’ 

‘…Yes? Soap tends to be a common part of the process of cleaning.’ 

‘I mean, are you sure you aren’t going to fall asleep and drown as soon as I turn my back on you?’ 

Z’kila opened his mouth, a barbed retort on the tip of his tongue before he then stopped himself. He huffed a sigh and swam to the bank, hauling himself out halfway to cling to the rock. ‘There. Now I can’t drown even if I do fall asleep. Which I won’t.’ 

G’raha nodded, doubt clear as day on his face as he climbed back to his feet and turned for the camp. Z’kila watched him leave, head coming to rest on folded arms. The sway of an auburn tail was almost hypnotic to his dry, itching eyes. He could close them, just to stop them itching. Just for a moment. 

‘ _I won’t fall asleep,_ he said.’ Z’kila jolted awake with a slosh of water, sucking in a panicked breath at the loud return of his companion. ‘ _You can just leave me here in the lake,_ he said.’ G’raha grinned down at him, one fist at his hip while his tail flicked from side to side. 

Z’kila scowled. ‘And did I drown?’ 

‘No, thanks to the timely rescue from one G’raha Tia.’ He sat himself down on the rock with crossed legs and handed over a bar of creamy, sweet-scented soap. The square of leather soap he kept to himself, picking up one of the bracers with a rag to start scrubbing. ‘I’ll worry about this. Get yourself clean before you pass back out.’ 

‘I did _not_ pass out.’ 

‘Of course not.’ 

Any other time Z’kila would have eagerly entertained this kind of petty argument but he was exhausted and he still needed to extract himself from the rest of his gear and bathe properly. Sharp aches raced up the backs of his legs as he reluctantly released the bank to free his hands. 

He unlaced his collar and reached back to haul his chest piece over his head. The combined cloth and leather was designed to fit tight to his body, to avoid catching on anything during high-speed maneuvers. But tight-fitting wet and sticky leather alongside heavy and lethargic limbs made for a tricky escape, especially half submerged. With his arms caught over his head and the garment encasing him in complete darkness, Z’kila struggled and thrashed, looking something like a beached whale in the water. 

A muffled, throaty chuckle from the bank had him grumbling expletives under his breath until something gripped the hem of his trap and tugged. With some effort, Z’kila managed to wriggle free with a splash. 

‘You would make quite the jester,’ said G’raha, smiling with all his shining white teeth. 

‘And you would not, if your paltry attempts at humour thus far are anything to go by,’ Z’kila shot back. G’raha merely laughed, turning the garment the right way up with his fingertips before plunging it back into the water with the soapy rag. 

His boots were almost as much of a pain to remove in the water but his trousers, at least, were far easier with their looser fit around his hips to allow for fast and flexible movement. His smalls had been spared any disgusting grime or blood but he gave them a quick wash anyway while he was in the water. Mostly, perhaps, to prevent G’raha trying to do it for him. Brushing his tail was already a line crossed. 

He returned to the bank to wash himself, clinging to the rock with one arm while he rubbed the soap over himself with the other. Removing the ichor stains to his skin, especially where it had crept under his clothes, was a long and arduous process. Z’kila felt as though he was scrubbing at the same spots for bells and the water was growing unbearably cold. 

‘Tell me more about… Pelican- Fleggythong- Phlega-thingy.’ 

‘Phlegethon?’ 

‘That’s the one. I couldn’t really focus on what you were saying earlier.’ 

‘And you think you can focus now?’ G’raha teased, laying out the sodden but clean pair of trousers on the bank and picking up a boot. ‘I’ve been told I’m very good at putting people to sleep when I get started on my research, so perhaps that’s not such a good idea,’ he added, a flash of a wince crossing his face before he was grinning again. 

‘Nonsense,’ said Z’kila, giving up on the soap and laying his head on his arms again. He was clean enough. ‘I saw the damn thing, I want to know what it was.’ 

‘...Are you sure?’

‘’Course. Talk loud, I don’t want to fall asleep again.’ 

A furrow creased into G’raha’s brows, still doubtful, but he obliged. He started cautiously, watching Z’kila carefully as though he was expecting to have to shake him out of a stupor. But once he reached his stride he seemed to enjoy talking about everything he knew of the hero General Phlegethon and why he was often mistaken for Acheron. Between periods of closed eyes, Z’kila would look up and hum when G’raha paused for breath to show he was listening. It was interesting to listen to, even more so because his teacher spoke so passionately. 

He didn’t even complain when G’raha took the sweet-scented soap from his loose grasp, worked up a lather between his hands and started to clean his hair as he continued to speak. His fingers were gentle, the light scratch of claws on his scalp soothing. He was even softer with the sensitive edges of his ears. 

Z’kila had to catch himself with a cough before the low rumbling vibrations deep in his chest could manifest themselves into a purr. G’raha didn’t notice, cupping water into his hands to pour over the top of his head. His subject had moved on from Phlegethon to a musing on voidsent and why they might have come to be in the labyrinth. Z’kila let him talk, let him rinse off the suds, even let him wipe down his face and neck with a clean rag. As much as he felt like a kit all over again, he was too tired for his pride to feel too wounded. He flinched as he caught the edge of the burn that continued to plague the back of one shoulder, one of the only physical remnants of his battle with the Ultima Weapon, and G’raha backed off immediately. 

‘You must be freezing,’ said G’raha once he’d apparently exhausted everything he knew even loosely related to what had been discovered in the labyrinth.

‘S’pose,’ mumbled Z’kila, lifting his head. He stared at the bank under his arms for a long moment, trying to muster up the strength to haul himself out. It didn’t come. He let his forehead droop back down onto the back of a hand. ‘I’ll sleep here.’ 

‘Here,’ said G’raha, getting to his feet and crouching down with a hand held out, amusement somewhat concealed. Z’kila opened his mouth with a frown, intending to argue and save what shreds of dignity he had left, but then gave in without so much as a grunt. They gripped forearms and G’raha pulled him from the lake.

He felt as though he weighed as much as Titan in a much smaller mass without the buoyancy of the water. Swaying a moment, he reached down to pick up his sodden gear. G’raha had done a good job of cleaning them. There were some stains that might never lift entirely but it wasn’t beyond use at least. 

‘Should I...fetch you something?’ G’raha asked, eyes averted and a hint of a blush across his cheeks. 

‘Hm?’ Z’kila looked down at himself. ‘Oh. No, the camp’s not far.’ The effort of getting dressed just to undress again to sleep seemed such a momentous task just to avoid the risk of a few wandering eyes. His arms full of sopping material, he turned for the camp. 

‘But- People will see?’

Z’kila glanced back over his shoulder, growing impatient. He appreciated the way mismatched eyes darted over his form and away again like he wouldn’t catch the staring. ‘It’s just a body, G’raha. Everyone has one.’ 

He felt eyes on him even as he walked away and a little tug of a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. Perhaps he could tease G’raha about it another time. They would likely have a fair few weeks in each other’s company before the secrets of the Tower could be reached and exposed, after all. 

*

With the labyrinth clear and Syrcus Tower’s doors shut tight, NOAH was afforded some downtime while the Ironworks team worked on getting them open. G’raha busied himself with the information some of the transcribed tometones had uncovered while Z’kila flitted in and out of the camp at varying intervals. Some days he sat by the fire and did very little except doze. Other times no one would see him for a week or more.

Usually on days when the sun shone brightly with a warmth that wrapped around the body like a comforting blanket, G’raha would find himself a tree with a low bough to curl up on with a tome in his lap. Those tended to be good days. With several scrolls’ worth of tomestone transcripts clutched in a greedy palm with a cloudless sky overhead, he had hoped today would be a good day. But with the landscape of Mor Dhona devastated beyond recognition with even the hardiest of shrubs struggling to cling on to life, he made do with a boulder and leant back against one of the protruding crystals that emanated a faint glow. 

Notebook open and quill poised, he was ready for a full day of noting down anything and everything that caught his eye. Anything that could expand on the vast wealth of knowledge that already existed, if even only by a tiny amount. At least he thought he had been ready and eager for a day of study. His mind had other ideas. 

Over and over again flashes of memory interrupted his focus. Memory of his bunkmate, of the battle-weary state he had found him in the labyrinth, covered in ichor and his blades dripping with it. Of the svelte form that looked all the more fragile when unclothed, of the vulnerability he allowed in front of G’raha. Here had been the man that saved the Eorzean Alliance from Garlean conquest and the primal threat both, almost single-handedly, baring himself in front of a near-stranger. 

As much as G’raha had tried to focus on washing his face and arms in the chilly water, he had caught himself a glimpse or two. 

The expanse of olive-hued back was marred by a red, angry burn across the left shoulder blade, the skin stretched and shiny. It looked only a few weeks old. The rest of his svelte form was nicked by gashes from blade and claw, all of which had resulted in various levels of gnarled scar tissue but some, it seemed, might fade. There had been no open wounds as far as G’raha had been able to see, a testament to his agility. 

Unlike his back, which had a scattering of small scars, his chest was smooth and unmarked. There didn’t look to be much muscle on him, nor any excess fat. He was rather lanky by miqo’te standards, not at all the expected shape of a warrior. But he struck an impressive figure all the same, perhaps because of his small size rather than in spite of it. 

G’raha had been able to keep his thoughts to himself while Z’kila had bathed, enjoying the conversation and the company and even washing his gear for him. He had been so gentle with it, afraid he might damage it in some way even though it had surely seen much rougher conditions. Washing his hair for him, on the other hand, may have been a step too far; his gut churned nauseatingly to think of it now. Coated and matted with slime and chunks of something he’d rather not ponder on too closely, it had come out so soft between his fingers once clean but he suspected without much doubt that Z’kila would never have allowed it had he been in a fitter state to argue. 

And then he had stepped out of the lake with _everything_ on display without so much as a blush. Perhaps he had spent too long out of the company of miqo’te, G’raha thought, remembering the tantalising sway of a (rather nice) toned rear beneath a dripping tail. He couldn’t help but consider that if he was content to leave himself on display, surely it was okay to look, at least a little bit?

G’raha heaved a great sigh and began his paragraph over again for the fourth time. As interesting and detailed as his transcript was, the words struggled to penetrate the overwhelming wall of the Warrior of Light currently guarding most of his working brain. The Warrior of Light. Z’kila Tia. The knife in the shadows, as the songs liked to title him.

‘Get _back_ here you fecking son of a whore, I’m not done with you-!’

The parchment creased in G’raha’s grasp as he jolted upright and caught himself on the rock before he toppled right off. Heart hammering, he looked up to watch Z’kila himself chasing a decidedly alarmed-looking hippogryph along the road, his bow gripped in one hand with an arrow threatening to snap in the other. He was fast, no doubt about it, but with his coat flapping behind him and his tail whipping uselessly about in evident rage, he didn’t stand a chance of catching up. 

One eyebrow lowered while the other raised, G’raha’s head tilting to one side as he watched the unexpected display with pricked ears. 

Truly, the intangible assassin of the tales did not extend to the menial task of hunting apparently. 

G’raha rolled up his scroll and tucked it away into his pack, sliding down the side of the boulder to land lightly on his toes. The hippogryph with a miqo’te on its tail drew closer to his peaceful spot as he leant over to pick up his own bow and quiver left within arm’s reach—‘ _I_ need those talons more than _you_ do!’—and nocked an arrow. 

With one eye closed he took aim. The gangly-legged beast was running right towards him with Z’kila’s manic, teeth-bearing snarl close behind. He drew back to the bowstring and fired. 

The hippogryph yelped and collapsed on the spot, white fletching quivering from one eye socket. Z’kila skidded to a halt on his heels before he could sprawl right across its carcass, his next snapping insult cutting off midway through a rather colourful string of curses. His mouth snapped closed and he frowned down at his dead quarry, one hand coming up the rest on his hip with the look of someone whose fun had just been ruined. 

‘Did I interrupt some kind of courting ritual?’ G’raha asked as he approached, struggling to contain a laugh at his fractionally protruding bottom lip. 

‘No, just my hunt,’ Z’kila returned, eyes sliding up to meet G’raha’s. 

‘…Was killing it not the intended outcome?’ 

‘Of course it was.’ He set his bow on his shoulder and returned the arrow to its quiver, untying a length of rope from his belt instead. ‘But why would I bother hauling the thing all the way down from the cliff if I can make it carry itself?’ He set about tying its hind legs together and yanked the arrow from its eye, handing it back to G’raha after a brief inspection of its bloody head. ‘I could have gotten it a fair few yalms closer to camp before shooting it.’ 

G’raha’s ears flicked in bemusement. ‘Ah…well, my apologies?’ 

Z’kila waved it away. ‘It was a good shot.’ 

His face felt warm. His entire self grew warm, in fact, at the passive, shrugging compliment that had nothing to do with the late summer sunshine. ‘What do you need the talons for?’ 

‘A request from a merchant in Revenant’s Toll. I don’t know what they want them for but they were offering a good reward and I can sell the rest of this thing without much work. The hide, the meat and the fangs will all sell decently well and I might be able to find a buyer for some of the bones.’ 

‘And you can do all that?’ 

Z’kila flashed him a grin, hooking the end of the rope over one shoulder to drag his prey back to the camp. ‘I’ve been a hunter a lot longer than I have been an adventurer.’ 

G’raha wiped off the arrow with the rag kept in the bottom of his quiver. The fletching wasn’t even scuffed. ‘You could have fooled me with that display.’ 

A roll of silvery eyes. ‘You can start breaking the rules when you’re skilled enough at something. Here.’ He dropped the rope in G’raha’s hands. ‘You can drag it, seeing as it was you that ruined the plan.’ He set off again without the burden of the carcass, one corner of his mouth grinning back over his shoulder. ‘You should join me sometime. Show me how to do it to _your_ standards.’ 

It was a tease, but one that had G’raha’s imagination running wild with imaginations of the pair of them deep in the brush on the trail of some big and dangerous beast. He shook it away, hooked the rope over his shoulder and hauled the dead animal along the road. ‘Lesson one: the arrow goes _in_ the bow.’ 

That drew a laugh from the Warrior of Light. ‘Ah. So that’s why throwing it wasn’t working.’ 

A playful whack of a tail to the back of his knees, which G’raha returned with a broad grin. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Z'kila and G'raha find some common interests in the bid to pass the time in the moons spanning the wait to open the doors to Syrcus Tower, each other being one of them.

Half a moon flew by before G’raha realised, his days spent inside the labyrinth and much of his nights spent pouring over his notes, old tomes or artifacts he had been allowed to take back to the camp. He spent most of his time alone. Rammbroes was busy organising the research efforts with everything they had been able to uncover thus far; Cid and his Ironworks men and women were up at the foot of the tower all bells of the day and night and refused to let anyone else anywhere near until they could confirm it was safe; Z’kila vanished before dawn each day and told no one where he went, returning only late into the night if he came back at all. 

‘Welcome back,’ said G’raha one of these nights, glancing up briefly from the tome resting on his crossed legs as Z’kila stumbled through the flap of the tent. ‘Was it a gigas or hippogryphs or nixes this time?’ 

‘A morbol,’ said Z’kila, wrinkling his nose. ‘Can’t believe you can’t smell it.’ 

G’raha inhaled deeply through his nose. There was a hint of marsh about him, the stagnant water clinging to his hunting coat, but nothing of the incapacitating stench of a morbol’s breath. ‘You can’t have gotten too close, then.’ 

‘Close enough,’ he said with a shudder. He pulled his bow and quiver off his shoulder and rested them in the corner of the tent. How G’raha wanted to go hunting with him one day, to test their shots against one another and bring down something big. The idea alone was enough to make his heart flutter. Perhaps once his research was done and the tower was sealed he could suggest the idea. ‘I think it’s stuck in my nose,’ Z’kila went on.

‘As long as it’s not in mine,’ G’raha teased, turning his page. Z’kila made a face over his shoulder and pulled off his coat and undershirt. ‘Did someone want the tentacles?’ 

‘Nope,’ said Z’kila, an impatient bite to his voice. ‘Some git in the Seventh Heaven said I needed to prove my worth before I could be considered for official adventuring work in Revenant’s Toll. Turns out he was just full of it. Needed someone to do a job he’d taken on and couldn’t actually do himself.’ 

G'raha stared. The idea of Z'kila Tia needing to prove any level of skill to anyone was ludicrous, and he would have said as much if he hadn't learned the hard way that any mention of his title or status immediately had Z'kila lowering his head and tensing his shoulders, fidgeting with remarkable discomfort. So he said instead, 'You could sell the tentacles though, no?' 

'Are you joking?' Z'kila asked with a huffed laugh. 'I wasn't going anywhere near that thing. So… _squidgy._ Ugh.' He shuddered again. 'I didn't even go back for my arrows.' 

Then he kicked off his boots and settled himself down in the same strange position as every night, with his back on the hardest part of the luminescent stone and his legs up on his cot. To give his heart a rest, he’d said when G’raha asked once, which was an odd thing in and of itself for someone who claimed to be only twenty-two summers old to say. He lay with his eyes closed, but he wouldn’t sleep. It was a kind of intentionally sleepless rest, as far as G’raha could tell; in fact the man did everything in his power to avoid sleep. He was always awake first of a morning and lay awake longer than G’raha into the night. The one and only time G’raha had seen him asleep was after his foray into the labyrinth, when he’d crashed face-down on his cot after setting his armour over a fire to dry. 

It was always this same odd upside down position, sometimes after brushing his tail, sometimes after brushing G'raha's as well. He couldn't remember the last time it looked so fine. Even Rammbroes had commented on it.

Z’kila waved one hand in the general direction of G’raha’s book. ‘So what have we uncovered today?’ 

Thoughts back on Allag, he reached for his notebook and said, ‘Do you remember those symbols we found around the doorway leading out of the labyrinth?’ Z’kila made an affirmative noise. ‘Well, I think they might actually be musical notes.’ 

He cracked open one silver eye. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, I found the same symbols in one of Rowena’s tomestones,’ G’raha went on, scrambling off his cot and hopping over Z’kila’s supine form to rummage through his satchel. ‘I don’t have the means to extract it again here, but it included a transcription of an old song, and the lyrics had very similar symbols alongside them.’

He located the scroll containing the transcript, flipped open his notebook to his sketch of the symbols around the doorway and handed it down to Z’kila. ‘I’m trying to find some mention of it,’ G’raha went on, ‘but the Allagans were as creatively advanced as they were technologically, and thousands of poems have survived. I haven’t yet found one with particular links to the labyrinth.’ He settled back on his cot and picked up the heavy tome. 

‘A password, mayhap?’ Z’kila suggested, holding the notebook over his head and squinting at the sketches. 

‘I thought of that, but you didn’t mention any music or song or, indeed, any grand opening of the door after you vanquished Phlegethon.’ 

Z’kila hummed. ‘Do you mind if I copy this down?’ 

G’raha glanced down at him, though his face was mostly obscured by the book. Z’kila was far more intrigued by G’raha’s research than anyone in Sharlayan had ever been. He would listen and pitch in his own opinions on the subject occasionally, though it was evident he was no scholar himself. It was a breath of fresh air to have someone at once interested and wouldn’t have their ego hurt to be corrected on the finer details. ‘Not at all. Does it remind you of something?’

Z’kila sat up and pulled a small journal out of his pack. ‘No, I just thought I could keep an eye out when I clear the tower.’ He stole one of G’raha’s quills and carefully copied down the geometric musical notes onto his own page. The burn on his shoulder was just starting to fade to a shiny white, the edges still an angry jagged red. G’raha wondered if there wasn’t anything anyone could do to keep it from scarring. 

Almost a full moon following the success in the labyrinth, G’raha sat alone once again in their shared tent with his notebook open. Z’kila’s cot had been empty for three nights and G’raha was starting to miss his input. A researcher Z’kila was not, but he found it helped organise his thoughts to talk about his findings with someone. 

He wasn’t getting anywhere. His notes were starting to go in circles, he realised, flipping through the last handful of pages in his notebook and realising there was nothing new written in any of them. He was waiting for the Ironworks to return transcripts of the last few tomestones he’d handed over, but with all the work they were doing at the foot of the tower progress was slow. 

His tail flicked impatiently. There wasn’t anything more he could do without those transcripts, and Rammbroes had all but dragged him out of the labyrinth by his tail that day when the sun started to set. 

G’raha snapped his notebook shut and climbed off his cot. He slung his bow and quiver over his shoulder and headed out, much too agitated to try and sleep with his head full of Allag and no way to scratch that particular itch. 

An uneventful walk up to Revenant’s Toll later, he opened the door to the Seventh Heaven and found it rather busy; busier than he would like. The bar was surrounded by merchants and adventurers alike, the chairs so full some people had taken to sitting on the tables. The minstrel in the corner was plucking a lively tune. G’raha nearly turned around to leave immediately, but spotted a familiar pair of ears over the crowd and found he could no longer tear himself away. 

Z’kila had found himself a drinking companion, it seemed; a dark-skinned Keeper with her hair cropped short and the pair of them had managed to clear a small space for themselves by the wall. She was showing him a simple six-step dance that involved a lot of hip swinging. And Z’kila wasn’t half bad at it. 

‘Relax your tail a bit,’ he heard her say as he ducked between patrons and under flailing arms to get close. ‘Not floppy, like, just relax and let it follow the movement of your body. There, you got it!’ 

‘G’raha!’ Z’kila greeted him, not once breaking stride, as he squeezed through two of the largest roegadyn he had ever met in his life. ‘Are you going to join us?’ 

Standing at his side now G’raha could smell the ale on his breath. He was two or three cups in at least. ‘Ah, no thank you,’ he said. Reserved he was not, not even when sober, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be intruding on something if he agreed. He himself had come here for a distraction, hadn’t he? It stood to reason Z’kila had done the same. 

‘If you get bored of adventuring you should come to Ul’dah and give us ladies something to look at,’ she said with a sultry wink that made Z’kila’s lip curl up in a grin. 

G’raha averted his eyes and made for the bar instead. Far be it from him to stand in the way of the Warrior of Light looking for distraction and companionship. He hadn’t been back to the Sons of Saint Coinach camp for days, so perhaps a quest had kept him away. In which case G’raha could hardly blame him for looking to warm another’s bed.

‘Are you leaving?’ Z’kila asked, pausing mid-step and cocking his head. 

G’raha glanced back over his shoulder and tried for a smile. ‘I just came for a drink. Don’t let me distract you, Z’kila.’ 

He knew immediately he had misspoken. Z’kila’s eyes widened in panic and he launched at G’raha, grabbing him by the neck and the world fell sideways as he restrained him tightly under one arm. Pressed tightly against the leather of the hunting coat, G’raha couldn’t have said another word even if he’d wanted to. He caught a glimpse of nearby patrons, those close enough to have heard him, turning towards Z’kila with a mix of curious, surprised and sceptical expressions. The Keeper froze and turned dilated pupils on Z’kila’s profile. ‘Excuse us,’ said Z’kila with the confident ease of an actor, like he didn’t have to contend with G’raha’s hands flailing for purchase on his person. ‘My friend likes to jest.’ 

Then Z’kila dragged him to the other side of the room, ignoring his muffled, wordless protests and stumbling feet, and only released him once the Keeper girl was out of sight behind the crowd. G’raha shook his ears out, lightheaded from the manhandled position he had been forced into. 

Z’kila pouted at him. It was an expression of mild annoyance rather than real anger, like G’raha had stepped in at the wrong time and ruined a rather good game. ‘I can only apologise,’ he said, flattening his ears.

Z’kila rolled his eyes and the expression melted. ‘No matter, it’s done.’ He caught the proprietor’s eye and asked for two cups of ale. 

‘But-’ G’raha faltered, ‘I am sorry. If only I knew you didn’t like your name spoken in company. Is there another I should use?’ 

Z’kila shrugged, eyes still on the proprietor. ‘I don’t really care. It’s just that people start talking and acting differently as soon as they know who I am, and I’m not in the mood for that tonight.’

‘You could perhaps salvage your evening with her,’ G’raha insisted. ‘She looked interested. I could just go-’

Z’kila caught hold of his elbow even though G’raha hadn’t made any move to leave. ‘Perhaps so, but I just said I’m not in the mood to decipher pleasant conversation from underhanded intent,’ he pointed out. 

G’raha raised an eyebrow. ‘Conversation, was it?’ 

‘I don’t like to assume,’ Z’kila said with another curling grin. ‘Regardless, since you’ve now ruined any chance of that you can stay and provide me with some decent company instead.’ 

Who was G’raha to argue with that? He coughed into his elbow in a terrible attempt to hide a delighted smile. He couldn’t let Z’kila think him as bad as those that gawked, asked invasive questions or demanded his attention because of his title. He distracted himself with the arrival of his ale and gulped down half of it in one shot. At his side Z’kila drank far more languidly, eyes half closed like the liquid was a soothing caress. G’raha tried not to stare; he didn’t want Z’kila to think him nosy, as much as he wanted to ask what had happened for him to go looking for alcohol and companionship. 

Then again, perhaps Z’kila did this often. G’raha didn’t have eyes on him all bells of the day, and his face was pretty enough that his name and title weren’t necessary to earn the attention of more or less anyone he wanted. 

Again G’raha thought of leaving. As much as he enjoyed Z’kila’s company and wanted to stay, the worry that he was disturbing his evening refused to leave his head. G’raha shrugged off his weapons and propped them against the bar, then downed the rest of his cup. Perhaps the ale would chase it away if he drank enough. 

Z’kila paused mid-sip and glanced sideways as G’raha banged his cup back onto the counter. ‘Looks like you needed that,’ he commented. ‘Have you been reading tomestone transcripts all day again?’ 

‘No,’ said G’raha. ‘I spent most of it in the- the place.’ His face warmed. Rammbroes had strictly forbidden them from speaking openly about the tower or anything remotely related to it anywhere that could be considered public. The only places they could speak openly were the labyrinth and the camp. 

The corner of Z’kila’s mouth quirked. ‘Ah. The _place._ Of course.’ 

‘I was sketching the architecture,’ G’raha explained, although he wasn’t sure why he felt the need to defend himself. Z’kila smiled sweetly at the young woman behind the counter and requested more ale. She rolled her eyes like she was used to such tactics but filled their cups nonetheless. ‘I’ll make this my last,’ mumbled G’raha, his coin pouch feeling embarrassingly light on his belt. 

‘You will do no such thing,’ Z’kila argued, smacking the backs of his knees with his tail. 

G’raha considered smacking him back, but thought better of it. He didn’t think he could face the humiliation if he missed and hit his rear. ‘...I really shouldn’t. Working with a headache is never a good idea-’

‘So sleep in tomorrow.’ 

‘-and gil is better spent on things other than ale.’ 

Z’kila snorted. ‘The things I need, gil can’t buy.’ He leant his elbows on the bar like standing on his own was becoming too much trouble. ‘The proprietress of the House of Splendors has managed to find out the worth of those tomestones we found in the _place._ The live ones, I mean. Now she won’t accept anything else as payment.’ He began to over-enunciate his words as his grumbling went on, the hint of a Shroud accent more pronounced in some places and muted in others. ‘But the more tomestones I give her, the more she expects. It’s this unending cycle of very unfair trade.’ 

‘Is Rammbroes giving you some of the tomestones?’ G’raha asked.

‘Mhm,’ mumbled Z’kila. ‘They’re more useful to me than gil.’ 

‘Are you getting them transcribed first?’ A moment of panic overtook him at the thought of the Warrior of Light handing over potentially _hundreds _of tomestones to a businesswoman that hadn’t much clue what they were or how they worked. He scowled. ‘I can’t believe Rammbroes would just hand over tomestones like its currency. He knows as well as I do how valuable they are-’__

__Z’kila chuckled. ‘Of course they’re being transcribed first. But Rowena doesn’t know that, so keep it to yourself.’ He laughed again like the idea was ridiculous. ‘She’s also decided that they are currency so get used to that.’_ _

__‘What does she even want them for?’ G’raha demanded, mollified only slightly by the assurance that no priceless information was lost._ _

__‘There are more Allagan scholars and collectors in Eorzea than you expect. I dread to think how much gil they’re offering for even _one_ of those tomestones.’ Z’kila’s ears pricked. ‘By the way, have you figured out why some of them glow red yet?’ _ _

__G’raha nursed his ale, reeling over the idea of those tomestones being nothing more than a collector’s item. ‘I haven’t had enough of them translated yet to know for certain, but I suspect the colours indicate their contents. Even the Allagans needed a way to organise their libraries.’_ _

__Z’kila hummed over the possibility. He straightened up with theatrical levels of effort. ‘Stop pinning those ears and pouting. We have the transcripts.’_ _

__It was tempting to stay grumpy out of pure spite, but it was difficult to maintain even a small pout with the numbing buzz of alcohol thrumming through his veins and beginning to cloud his mind. He wasn’t drunk by any means; not yet, at least. He would be before long if Z’kila kept asking for more ale for the both of them._ _

__‘Rammbroes said you can sing,’ said Z’kila before G’raha could decline any more refills._ _

__The sudden, unashamed change of subject had him mentally floundering for a moment through the developing haze. ‘I do sometimes,’ he managed. He didn’t particularly like to perform on demand, and hoped Z’kila wasn’t about to ask him to. Singing his tribe’s old songs was something he considered to be private, something done on long journeys or around the campfire once the sun had set._ _

__‘Sing with me? This tune is starting to grate.’_ _

__G’raha glanced at the minstrel, still plucking away in the corner. He had been playing the same tune all evening, over and over again so that his ears had almost stopped hearing it entirely. He wasn't generally one to perform, especially not to a tavern full of strangers, but the invitation to sing alongside Z'kila Tia was tempting enough to put his reservations aside. The alcohol certainly helped too, he conceded to himself as he turned back to his companion and said, 'What song did you have in mind?'_ _

__'Do you know 'Turn Your Eyes Away'?'_ _

__G'raha's interest peaked. Z'kila's choice was an incredibly old song, so old that it seemed to be universally known among all Seeker tribes across Eorzea and had to have existed long before their ancestors migrated down from Ilsaberd. So old that it still contained phrases from the old tongue, simple sentences from the same language that had born huntspeak. Most miqo'te struggled with the alien words these days, no one left alive could translate them accurately. 'I know it. Do you?'_ _

__He hadn't meant it as a challenge, but perhaps his scepticism had shown on his face, for Z'kila's mouth curled up and he pinned G'raha with narrowed eyes. Without another word, he pushed away from the bar and slipped through the crowd towards the minstrel in the corner. G’raha sipped his ale while he waited and the music stopped. A moment later, Z’kila reappeared at his side with the lyre in his grip._ _

__‘Feel free to take the lead,’ he said, gliding his fingers across the strings in a melodic strum._ _

__With skilled fingers he picked up the upbeat tune of the old song. Traditionally it would be played on a violin and the short, plucky notes of the lyre gave the introduction a slightly different, lighter tone. G’raha swallowed another mouthful of ale and pulled himself up to perch on the bar. Nerves churned in his gut. He hoped the crowded tavern was loud enough and its patrons drunk enough that their song would go mostly ignored. But he was eager to hear Z’kila sing, to sing alongside him and be the decent company he wanted._ _

__Z'kila cued him with a simple glance out of the corner of his eye, and G'raha began to sing. The song's opening was in Common, the notes easy, the tune lively. He was quiet at first, trying to keep the song a private affair between them, and felt a rush of satisfaction when Z'kila smiled._ _

__He joined his voice to G’raha’s for the bridge, still in Common, and matched both his pitch and volume. They watched each other closely as they drew towards the difficult chorus, grinning together at the anticipation of leaving the comfort of modern language behind and testing one another’s proficiency with the dead miqo’te tongue._ _

__They launched into the chorus with relish, raising their voices, to ease the shaping of harsh, throaty hisses and deep, rumbling growls around forgotten vowels but also from pure enjoyment in singing. G'raha hadn't sung like this in many years. There was little call for it with the Students of Baldesion, and less still for duets._ _

__Z'kila fell silent for the verses, turning his attention to the lyre and allowing G'raha to sing alone, to enjoy the song without having to worry about keeping time and pitch with another voice. But the bridge and chorus where they sang together was far more enjoyable. G'raha was proud of his mastery of the difficult sounds of the old language, which came largely with the practising of these types of tribal songs, and Z'kila was an impressive singer himself, both in Common and out of it._ _

__Most of the tavern's patrons were either too drunk or too engaged in their own conversations to pay them much attention, but the Keeper girl climbed onto a chair to watch them over the heads of everyone else. She clapped along with the chorus and attempted to sing along with the old words with varied levels of success._ _

__It was a song steeped in traditional Seeker culture. As fun and lively as the melody was, the lyrics turned it into a warning for young miqo’te women against the temptations of non-miqo’te men and to stay loyal to their nunh. The exact meaning of the chorus was lost to time, but G’raha suspected it said something akin to ‘know your place.’ It was, in retrospect, a rather heinous message to be singing with a smile on one’s face, especially in a world where it was growing ever more apparent that nobody belonged anywhere._ _

__But G’raha’s mind was fuzzy, he was enjoying himself and he didn’t care for the details of a song he couldn’t and would never fully understand._ _

__The end of their song was met with scattered cheering. Z’kila asked for more ale and G’raha forgot to protest. The next song was an easier undertaking and more commonly known, enticing some of the more inebriated patrons to join in. They took breaks between each song just long enough to empty their cups, which were magically refilled without request. Their singing grew less cohesive, forgotten words replaced with nonsense, but all the more fun for it._ _

__After the first few bells of the early morning and double the amount of ale, Z’kila lost all track of which song they were currently singing and decided that Yosef the Braggart must have thrust his ‘wife’ into his nemesis rather than his ‘knife,’ and the song trailed off without an end as G’raha descended into a fit of giggles._ _

__The sharp trill of a hand bell next to their ears had them both flinching. The tavern was still relatively full, although it wasn’t as crowded as when G’raha had arrived, and a collective groan filled the room._ _

__‘That’s quite enough madness!’ the proprietor shouted over the noise. ‘Out you get. Go home. Find a bed. I don’t care if it’s yours.’_ _

__Z’kila huffed a breath and stumbled away from the counter to retrieve his bow from whatever corner he’d stuffed it in. With deliberate care, G’raha eased himself down from his perch on the bar and, for a mercy, remembered to collect his own possessions. A profound sadness overcame him as they followed the shuffling crowd out the door; the night had been as a dream, and not one he ever wanted to see end. He even felt the ridiculous urge to cry. He blamed the ale._ _

__Out by the Aetheryte, the crowd dispersed and left Z’kila and G’raha alone. The chilly night air and sudden quiet struck G’raha about the face and made the world spin. At his side Z’kila swayed. Or maybe that was G’raha. Or both of them. It was difficult to tell._ _

__‘S’it worth walkin’ all the way down to camp?’ Z’kila slurred._ _

__G’raha looked around. Revenant’s Toll was slowly beginning to look less like a camp in the wilderness and more like a permanent outpost, but there was yet nowhere to rent a bed. And the bushes were too thorny to be much of a substitute._ _

__Trying to shake free of the murk in his head, G’raha said, ‘Yes. If we keep to the road… we should be gine. I mean- Fine.’_ _

__Z’kila giggled, a high-pitched sound that did not suit him, but the delighted smile lifted the lines and shadows from his face and made him look the twenty-two summers he claimed to be. G’raha relished the expression. He knew he was staring and did not care._ _

__On chocoback the trek down to Saint Coinach’s Find took less than a half-bell, but the stumbling, swaying, leisurely gait of two very drunk miqo’te took almost four times as long. They stuck to the road as best their uncoordinated feet allowed. Z’kila was in a slightly worse state, overstepping with each foot as he walked with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched like he was about to take off and fly into the heavens. G’raha kept one hand on the edge of his sleeve to keep him from swaying straight off the path. He was singing softly under his breath, but he was slurring so much and G’raha’s brain was so hazy that he couldn’t tell if there were lyrics to his song or if he was just _lah-de-dah_ ing. _ _

__‘Ye’ve bin good comp’ny, Raha,’ he said, abruptly cutting off his song._ _

__A shiver ran down G’raha’s spine all the way to the tip of his tail, fluffing out his fur at the way his tongue trilled around his name. He wasn’t sure how to respond; sober, he could have come up with something clever or at least eloquent. In that instant he worried whatever words he could conjure up would mix themselves up on the way out of his mouth. So he beamed silently and patted his arm instead, hoping that was enough._ _

__Z’kila opened his eyes and lowered his ears, locking eyes with G’raha and he knew immediately he’d been misunderstood. He stammered in his haste to clarify himself, but he found his lips suddenly very occupied by Z’kila’s._ _

__G’raha flattened his ears. It was a quick, chaste kiss, a firm and fumbled press of lips that was absolutely nothing other than gratitude and affection. But it was a taste, a tease, of something more, something G’raha craved._ _

__He wrapped his fingers around the lapels of Z’kila’s coat and hauled him off the road, summoning hidden reserves of strength to keep them both upright where limbs were reluctant to work as they should. Off the road and out of sight behind a scrap of Garlean airship, G’raha shoved Z’kila back against the twisted metal. He spared just a moment to take in the wide-eyed blink before he crushed their mouths back together._ _

__If Z’kila’s kiss had been the spark of a tinderbox, G’raha’s was the subsequent inferno. They were flush together from chest to thighs, even the toes of their boots touching, with G’raha’s hands fisted into the leather sleeves of Z’kila’s coat. Beneath him Z’kila seized up, but it was several long moments before his mind was able to take note of it, to ease up on the pressure and think _this was a bad idea._ No sooner had he thought to back off than Z’kila grabbed hold of his hips and pulled him in, returning the blazing kiss with equal fervour. _ _

__G’raha let out a shaky sigh and Z’kila smiled against him._ _

__It was not elegant or practised, certainly not gentle. Lips slid over each other in a messy struggle to find any kind of matching rhythm or pressure. G’raha nipped too hard on Z’kila’s lower lip, earning a flinch and a pained hiss, and was paid back with long fingers curled tight into his hair._ _

__The heat of Z’kila’s mouth was intoxicating, and the wet swipe of his tongue against G’raha’s lower lip made the world spin faster. He couldn’t focus, shivering with the intensity of sensation and frightened of making a fool of himself. He slid one hand up to the back of Z’kila’s head and yanked hard on his dark hair, forcing him to expose his throat with a gasp. G’raha kissed his way down his jaw and latched onto his neck, nipping and kissing and pressing the flat of his tongue to that smooth, unblemished olive skin. His pulse fluttered beneath, breath coming short and ragged._ _

__One hand clawed tight in Z'kila's hair, G'raha slid the other down to the buckled fastening of his coat. He bit down into the juncture between shoulder and neck, pulling lightly at the skin there while his numb fingers fumbled with the buckle. Z'kila's fingertips dug into his hips, holding him close and making it harder to get his coat open and give him access to his chest._ _

__The haze swirled in his mind, picking up speed in time with his growing frustration with the damned coat. His mouth watered with the anticipation of using it elsewhere._ _

__Just as soon as he could get where he wanted to be._ _

__The buckle yielded with a clink. G'raha threw open his coat and moved down to his chest, dragging his teeth and tongue down to lave at one nipple while Z'kila's fingers grabbed and pulled at his doublet. He dropped to his knees, paid careful attention to his navel, biting at the hard flesh of his abdominals and following the trail of dark hair down to the waistband of his trousers with his tongue. Brushing lightly across his groin, he enjoyed the flinch and sharp inhale as he went to scrabble at the laces._ _

__'Raha,' Z'kila panted, barely more than a whisper, and drew G'raha's attention up to half-closed eyelids and parted, shining lips. He yanked at the laces on his trousers. 'Raha, stop.'_ _

__Z'kila's hands fumbled to grip G'raha's and he froze. The haze settled. Blood thumped through his head._ _

__'Not right now. I won't do this if we won't remember in the morning.'_ _

__His gut twisted sharply, clearing the worst of the ale-induced fog. Perhaps the alcohol was to blame, perhaps the rejection had just come as a shock, but the urge to burst into tears slammed back into him with full force. He didn't trust himself to speak. As before, he just smiled and nodded, getting to his feet. He turned his back while Z'kila righted his coat, staring hard at the Crystal Tower and refusing to cry._ _

__It was bad enough to have Z'kila reject him. He wasn't about to weep in front of him over it as well._ _

__Z'kila reappeared in his peripherals, suitably covered up. G'raha couldn't look at him. 'Think I'm going to regret drinking so much in the morning,' he said lightly, stepping back to the road._ _

__It would have hurt less to have him thrust one of his famed daggers straight into his gut and twist. G'raha clenched his jaw and hummed in a way he hoped sounded affirmative, following several paces behind._ _

__Z'kila didn't even look back._ _


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a misunderstanding leads to some wounded prides and an embarrassed pair of miqo'te that don't know how to talk to one another. Who else to mope to than a certain Fortemps knight?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are references here to another fic of mine, _To Be Praised,_ but it's not necessary reading for this chapter (although I would be very appreciative if you had a look anyway! ♥)

There was no gentle drift from dream to wakefulness that morning. Z’kila jerked into the realm of reality with about as much grace as being punched in the temple by Titan, with about as much pain to go with it. He groaned into his pillow, which was just his coat folded under his head, and scrunched up his eyes. Throbbing pain pulsed in ripples from one side of his head to the other. 

With one arm curled around his coat, he patted around himself with the other, refusing to open his eyes to the onslaught of daylight. He was on his cot in the tent, with the cold stone ground of Mor Dhona just a fulm below. Wiggling his toes, he found that he had at least managed to kick his boots off the night before. Or perhaps earlier that morning would be more accurate. 

Sighing, Z’kila turned his head to the side and opened his eyes a crack, peering through his lashes, and hissed at the stripe of bright morning light striking between the tent flaps. G’raha’s cot was empty, his bedroll folded neatly at its foot. The first time he had been awake before Z’kila. 

_G’raha._

Z’kila sat up too fast and the ground tipped over, a fresh wave of pulsing pain in his head. He gripped his ears and gritted his teeth. Snippets of the previous night came back to him in flashes, of stealing the minstrel’s lyre, of singing along with G’raha’s surprisingly sweet voice, of _recklessly_ walking back to Saint Coinach’s completely drunk and kissing him and receiving a response he had not expected but most certainly welcomed. 

That is, until G’raha knelt at his feet and tried to get into his trousers. 

The same warm want twinged in his nethers and he shook his head, distracting himself with the dizzying pain. It had taken every onze of his being to halt the direction they had been taking, the intense lustful need conflicting with the muffled, conscious awareness that they were both incredibly drunk. He sighed and stumbled to his feet, straightening out the undershirt and trousers he had apparently not seen the need to remove to sleep. Perhaps if he and G’raha could grab themselves a moment of privacy they could pick up where they left off, if he still wanted to. Sober, this time. 

With his bow and quiver over his shoulder, Z’kila considered heading up to Coerthas to see if Lord Haurchefant’s knights needed any help maintaining the supply line as he ducked out of the tent. But raised voices drew his attention to the middle of the camp, where Rammbroes was trying to placate what looked to be an enraged G’raha with raised palms. Z’kila headed over, equal parts curious and eager to stop the shouting. 

‘This argument is and will remain a pointless exercise until we find a way to open the doors, G’raha,’ Rammbroes said, sounding as though he was bored of saying this exact phrase. 

‘Then let me go and help them figure it out!’ G’raha demanded, his ears back and a scowl on his face, his tail standing on end. ‘I know you don’t want me to go in there, but let me do _something-_ ’ He spotted Z’kila approaching and cut himself off, looking away. 

Rammbroes looked up. ‘Ah, Z’kila. We didn’t see you return last night.’ 

‘We were out rather late,’ said Z’kila, one hand pressed to his temple like it could ease the pulsing headache. He glanced sideways to share a sheepish grin with G’raha, but the other was looking resolutely the other way, arms folded and tense. 

‘So I see,’ said Rammbroes, eyes sliding down to Z’kila’s neck. 

A flash of a hot mouth and sharp teeth on his skin. 

Z’kila looked again at G’raha, who was still staring hard at a boulder but turning tomato red from his hairline all the way down his neck. Z’kila pulled up his collar to hide the mark. ‘I was in the Seventh Heaven,’ he said, hoping the vague explanation would spare G’raha any further embarrassment. Instead he glanced up, a flash of hurt across his face instead of any relief or gratitude, before he looked down at his feet. 

Rammbroes glanced between them, trying to read the tense atmosphere. Z’kila didn’t understand it either. He had spared G’raha the regret of lying with him while too intoxicated to really know whether he wanted to or not, instead suggesting they continue the rest of the act when they had the presence of mind to enjoy it if and when they wanted to, tried to spare him the humiliation of boasting about what they _had_ done when it became clear he was regretting it, but everything he said just seemed to make the situation worse.

This was why he usually let Minfilia and Alphinaud do the talking. 

G’raha cleared his throat and said quietly, ‘I will go and lend my skills to Cid’s team, if you don’t mind.’ 

Z’kila watched him walk away down the path leading to the Crystal Tower, ears down and tail clamped. He rubbed at his temple, confused and too headsore to work out exactly what was wrong. 

‘Did you two have some kind of disagreement?’ Rammbroes asked. 

‘...I didn’t realise it was a disagreement.’ Z’kila grimaced. He could remember only flashes of the night prior, but had a very clear recollection of the energy and willpower it took to stop G’raha when he was on his knees pawing at his groin. Perhaps that was the problem; perhaps he had taken too long to say no. Perhaps he should not have kissed him in the first place, gratitude intended or no. The fact that G’raha seemed to regret what they had done stung a little, but it was reassuring at least that he’d put a stop to it when he did. 

‘Leave him to his moping, then,’ said Rammbroes. ‘He’s probably just sulking because I won’t let him go into Syrcus Tower with you. Assuming we can get through the front door, that is.’ 

Z’kila wasn’t sure that was all it was. ‘Shall I go to join them? Is there anything I can do to help?’ 

Rammbroes rested a huge hand on Z’kila’s shoulder with a gentle smile. ‘Cid has declared the area safe, but impenetrable. To be perfectly honest, until we can get that door open there’s nothing I can ask you to do. Let the scholars do what they can and we’ll be in contact with you via linkshell as soon as we make progress.’ 

As much as he wanted to follow G’raha and find out what the problem was so he could fix it, Z’kila thought that Rammbroes was probably right in letting him mope for a little while. There would be plenty of time to discuss it later, and apologise for what he had or hadn’t said or done. They were still sharing a tent, after all. 

Z’kila nodded at Rammbroes, pulled up his collar again, and went to fetch Firefoot from the makeshift shelter that was acting as a stable for the chocobos. Her crimson plumage stood out against the yellow of her stablemates, the array of packchocobos that carried their supplies down from Revenant’s Toll. Firefoot chirped at him and pulled on her tether, ruffling her feathers. She tugged just a little too hard on a strand of his hair, catching his scalp with the point of her beak. 

‘I’m _sorry,_ ’ he said, rubbing his already sore head. ‘By the Twelve, I’ll take you with me next time I go away for three days. We’re going to see Haurchefant today, isn’t that nice? Don’t peck me anymore.’ 

She chirped again, less irritable, and let him pet her neck. 

*

Two days on from that humiliating night, the memory of which still turned his face tomato red, G’raha sat on an upturned crate outside his shared tent with a wood-bound tome in his lap. The last rays of sunlight were disappearing behind the cliffs and the researchers had gathered around the firepit for supper along with Rammbroes, Cid and his Ironworks team. Frustratingly, Z’kila sat among them. 

After a moon or more of him disappearing at every available opportunity, Z’kila had taken to lingering around the camp far more often. G’raha had overheard him asking Rammbroes, Cid, or any of the researchers if there was anything he could help with, stooping even to the mind-dulling busywork of hauling crates of tomestones from the camp up to the Tower door and back again. 

G’raha had missed him while he was gone before; now that he wished he’d disappear entirely, Z’kila lurked around the camp like he had nothing better to do. G’raha did his best to keep out of his way. The thought of irritating him beyond the mortifying attempt to bed him was almost too much to bear. 

The gathering around the growing fire was growing noisy. Chatter and laughter disturbed his quiet reading. He glanced up. Z’kila sat among them with his boots up on a stack of tomestone boxes, his shoulders leaning against a boulder. He had a bowl of soup in his lap, answering questions thrown his way but for the most part leaving the conversation to everyone else. 

Z’kila looked around and G’raha stuck his nose back into the tome, flipping the brittle pages as fast as he dared. 

A shadow fell over the book, blocking out the light of the campfire, and he didn’t need to look up to know who it was. Z’kila perched silently on an upturned bucket nearby and continued to eat. No words. G’raha almost vibrated with the hyperawareness of his nearness. 

‘...Are you alright?’ 

G’raha jumped, even though Z’kila’s voice was soft, intended for his ears only. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’ There was a definite sharp edge to his voice that he regretted immediately. 

A rustle of movement at his side that indicated a half-hearted shrug. ‘You didn’t want any soup… and you’ve been staring at that page for about three times the length you usually take to read.’ 

The heat rising in his face, G’raha chewed on his lip and glared at the page open in his lap. He could see the words scrawled across the brittle paper, in both Common and Allagan, quite plainly; yet, they had lost all meaning, no matter how many times he read them over. He turned the page anyway, whether out of spite or shame he couldn’t say. ‘I’m quite alright, I assure you.’

A rather awkward silence stretched between them. Perhaps it was only awkward to G’raha, since Z’kila looked entirely at ease eating from his bowl when he glanced up through his lashes. He didn’t understand why Z’kila was lurking around him, not after what he’d done. Couldn’t bring himself to make conversation and risk annoying him further. He had spent the last days and nights making himself as unimposing as possible to leave Z’kila alone, and now he came to sit with him. He didn’t understand. 

‘You should join me in the Seventh Heaven again sometime, Raha,’ Z’kila said, setting his empty bowl down by his feet. 

‘ _G’raha,_ ’ he corrected sharply, slamming the book shut. ‘I wasn’t aware we were on a given-name basis.’ 

Z’kila’s surprise was given away only by the way his brow raised a fraction, but it was the way his ears lowered that had guilt coursing through G’raha’s veins. He looked away with a scowl. ‘I’m sorry,’ Z’kila muttered. ‘I shouldn’t assume.’ 

_Neither should I,_ G’raha thought, a shameful flush taking over his face. ‘Forget it,’ he muttered back, standing from his seat. Unable to bring himself to look at Z’kila’s hurt expression again, he clutched the book under one arm and ducked into the tent. He sat on his cot, fingers tight around the tome in his lap, until he heard the soft rustling of Z’kila getting up to leave. 

G’raha looked down at the book. He should keep reading, had so many pages left to get through. But all he could see was that raised brow, those lowering ears. 

How long had he dreamed of meeting someone like Z’kila? A legend made flesh? Anywhere the man went was history in motion, events that would one day be written down in ancient books like the one in G’raha’s lap. And he had the chance to see it; although he himself may be less than a nameless footnote at the bottom of a page, he had the opportunity to _see_ Z’kila shape the course of history. And G’raha was doing a very good job of pushing him away. 

With a sigh, he reached over to set the book back onto one of the piles at the foot of his cot. Then collapsed face down on the makeshift pillow, a tangled assortment of clean shirts, an attempt to hide from the world, or perhaps even his own mind. 

Z’kila did not return to their shared tent that night.

*

A blizzard set in across the Highlands as Z’kila urged poor Firefoot through the curtain of blinding snow, her talons catching in the drifts piling up along the road and slowing her as much as she tried to charge through. Frost caught on Z’kila’s eyelashes and he blinked furiously, glaring at the faint beacon shining in the distance. If he looked away for even a moment, he could lose it and find himself lost in a formless world of pure white with only his chocobo for warmth. 

Each breath came like a stab to the chest. Ears were pinned flat to his hair. Firefoot chirped forlornly, fighting with the roar of the wind to be heard. They may not have been on the road anymore; for all Z'kila knew, they rode through a valley heading straight for Camp Dragonhead. By some good fortune, all of the crocs had taken shelter from the blizzard. There was no sign of any fauna as far as the eye could see- which, admittedly, was not very far. 

Finally the great walls of the fortress loomed out of the dim white world. Firefoot was right under the portcullis before any of the shivering Knights noticed their arrival. An elezen woman covered in frosted chainmail ran up on staggering legs to take hold of Firefoot’s reins as Z’kila dismounted. All of his joints were frozen stiff and he nearly fell straight forward onto his face as his feet hit the snow. His chocobo had lost her vibrant colouring under the frosting of white. 

There was no talking to be done, breath icy in their chests and painful on their vocal chords. They nodded at one another instead, a greeting of recognition, before Z’kila turned and traipsed through the knee-deep snow to the main hall. 

Another Knight managed a half-hearted wave by the door before heaving it open for him. A drift of snow toppled inside, and Z’kila along with it. The howl of the wind left his ears ringing even after the heavy door closed on the outer wilderness. A blazing fire in the grate on the northern wall fought valiantly against the chill trying to invade the great hall, even as it seemed most of Dragonhead’s Knights had retired for the night. Just two stood vigilant about the vast table sporting the map of Coerthas and Ishgard. And behind the desk against the far wall, Lord Haurchefant, exactly where Z’kila knew he would be. 

‘My dear friend!’ he exclaimed, springing to his feet as Z’kila shook the worst of the snow off his coat and out of his hair. Piles of paperwork were left abandoned as Haurchefant hurried to his side. 'A warm blanket and a mug of drinking chocolate!' he barked at his two guarding Knights, and then to Z'kila more gently, 'What were you thinking, riding all this way in a blizzard?!' 

'It w-wasn't b-blizzarding where I c-came from,' Z'kila managed to retort, the bite of his voice diminished by clattering teeth. 

Haurchefant bundled him under one arm and half-led, half-carried him over to the fire, pulling up one of the long benches so he could sit right by the flames. A few moments of nursing a hot drink, smothered in a warm blanket that had clearly been hanging over a fire calmed his wracking shivers. The Commander of the fortress left his work to sit close by, though it must have been important to keep him at his desk so late. 

‘What were you thinking?’ Haurchefant asked as Z’kila hunched over his cup, his entire self damp now that the snow had melted in front of the fireplace. ‘It’s _so_ easy to get lost in the highlands in a blizzard. Heaven forbid we lost you to the snow!’

‘I was thinking that I’d rather spend the night in this godsforsaken wasteland where I have to break my neck to talk to any of you dhalmels than another in the company of someone who’d much rather I wasn’t there,’ Z’kila retorted, unable to suppress the shivers. He longed for a bath in a hot spring. He took another sip of hot chocolate; the cold had set in deep into his bones, a type of cold that he felt would stick to him forever. 

But still preferable to lingering around the Sons when G’raha no longer wanted anything to do with him. 

‘Whoever wouldn’t want _you_ in their company?!’ Haurchefant asked, with all the adequate waving of arms to go along with his indignation. Z’kila nearly rolled his eyes, even as a fond smile pulled at his mouth. Trust Haurchefant to give a boost to his ego, whether it was warranted or not. ‘Are you quite sure it’s you they dislike?’ 

Z’kila snorted. ‘Yes.’ He was tempted to keep it at that, let Haurchefant talk about something else and drive G’raha from his mind for a time. But the earnest look aimed at him, with wide eyes and open face, made him hesitate to dismiss the concern. Of everyone flitting in and out of Z’kila’s unstable life, Haurchefant was the most approachable of them all; honest to a fault and eager to hang onto Z’kila’s every word. ‘I...made a mistake. But I don’t know how to fix it.’

‘I’m certain it isn’t anything irredeemable,’ Haurchefant replied immediately, accepting a cup of hot chocolate from one of his Knights, the brunette elezen woman that tended to linger by the Commander’s desk. ‘If you would permit it, I could offer an ear and some council. Should you wish it.’ 

At Z’kila’s hesitation with a glance towards the two most loyal of Haurchefant’s Knights, the Commander immediately dismissed them with a wave of his hand. 

The vast hall felt strangely claustrophobic with just the two of them sitting close to the fireplace. The wind continued to howl beyond the front doors and high windows, small snow flurries making their way inside to flutter down and melt in the heat of the fire. Z’kila’s shivers began to subside as his hair and coat dried. He flicked his tail into his lap to bring it closer to the crackling flames; clumps of snow had caught in the fur and frozen solid. Even once it melted out it would need some care. 

Haurchefant remained silent while Z’kila collected his thoughts, sipping from his cup with eyes on the fire in the grate. 

‘There’s someone I’m working with down near Revenant’s Toll,’ he began at length, choosing his words carefully. He’s not certain what he can and can’t share about the Crystal Tower. ‘I considered him a friend, and we shared a drink or two one night. I was a bit drunk and grateful for his company, so I kissed him.’ 

‘Ah,’ said Haurchefant, turning to him with a glint in his eye. ‘I can’t help but notice a pattern here, my friend.’ 

Z’kila winced. ‘Yes yes, I get affectionate when I’m drunk. But that’s all it was, affection.’

Haurchefant hummed, taking a sip from his cup. ‘I must confess, I don’t understand how anyone could reject a kiss from such an esteemed individual such as yourself.’ Z’kila huffed, half a scoff and half a laugh. ‘I can’t imagine that a simple explanation of your intentions wouldn’t suffice.’ 

‘He didn’t reject it,’ Z’kila muttered. ‘At least...at first. It was a gesture of appreciation, I assure you, but I think he understood it as something more.’ 

‘Ah, I see,’ said Haurchefant. Long slender fingers reached over to pluck at Z’kila’s collar to reveal the bruise on his neck, now fading to various shades of yellow around the edges. ‘This was him, was it?’ Z’kila scowled and pulled his collar back up to cover it. ‘The poor man didn’t take well to the rejection? I can sympathise.’

‘ _I_ didn’t reject it either! We were both very drunk and things were...progressing, and it was a bad idea for many reasons to let it keep going, so I said we should stop.’ 

A moment of silence followed as Haurchefant set down his empty cup, a thoughtful furrow developing between his eyebrows. Silvery hair glittered in the firelight. ‘And you say he dislikes your company now?’ he asked lightly. ‘Why do you suppose that might be after leaving such a mark on your pretty neck?’

Z’kila shrugged. ‘Regret? I don’t know. Maybe that much ale induces that kind of mood in him and I was the most kissable thing within reach.’ 

‘Perhaps,’ Haurchefant mused, maintaining that light tone of voice that suggested he had other ideas. ‘I would argue you to be the most kissable thing in all the realm, and I can imagine many a man and woman trekking malms for such an experience. I consider myself very honoured to have experienced it myself, as fleeting as it was.’ 

Another roll of his eyes, but Z’kila was too used to this kind of praise from the caretaker of Camp Dragonhead to take it seriously. He heaved a great sigh and changed the subject. The sooner he could get G’raha out of his head, the better. ‘How is the supply line? Any more heretic attacks?’ 

‘Oh, a few attempted ambushes here and there, but your Crystal Braves have been keeping the road clear as far as possible. A couple of scuffles. Nothing of particular note, especially recently.’ Haurchefant cared very much about the supplies provided by the Fortemps through Camp Dragonhead; Z’kila had witnessed much of the enthusiastic planning when the idea was first proposed, but now it was clear he was less inclined to talk about it. ‘Perhaps a simple conversation with your _friend_ is all that’s needed to clear the air. It would be a shame for a miscommunication to last any length of time.’

Z’kila responded with a noncommittal hum. For now, he was done talking about it, would rather listen to something else, _anything_ else. ‘The Stone Vigil, then, how goes its reclamation?’ 

A small smile pulled at the corners of Haurchefant’s mouth, a knowing sidelong glance to accompany it. 'After your _heroic_ deeds in the fortress once again, I have heard that the knights of House Durendaire are making headway in clearing all of its darkest corners of Dravanian nests. Progress is slow, of course, but there is progress.' He turned to beam down at his shorter companion. 'If the Steel Vigil weren't in such ruin, I might dare ask you to perform the same feat for dear Francel.’ 

‘If it would prove in any way useful I would slaughter every dragon this side of Ishgard, but more would turn up within the week.’ 

‘Quite,’ Haurchefant agreed. ‘But the gesture is nonetheless appreciated. I will pass it on to House Haillenarte.’ 

The idea brought an amused grin to Z’kila’s face, the passing on of a _gesture,_ of all things, that he cannot actually do. ‘I’m sure they’ll take great comfort to hear what I’m _not_ going to do,’ he said, voice coloured with cynicism. 

‘Just hearing that the vaunted Warrior of Light merely _wishes_ to help comes as a great comfort, I assure you,’ Haurchefant protested without an onze of shame. His cobalt gaze was full of such sincerity that an increasingly familiar churn of guilt made itself known in Z’kila’s gut. He looked away into the fire, distracting himself with a sip of his rapidly cooling drink without tasting it. 

‘If I could have another blanket, would you mind if I slept here?’ he asked, suddenly aware how late it was. He couldn’t expect Haurchefant to stay up all night to entertain him when there was doubtless ample work to be done, let alone time to sleep. 

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Haurchefant, rising to his feet. ‘There’s always a room prepared for you here, my friend. You shall have a proper bed and some privacy.’ 

Z’kila took a breath to protest but gave up the argument before it began, instead smiling weakly as he followed. ‘Am I here that often?’ He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, already dreading heading back outside for the few paces towards the intercessory. 

‘Not nearly often enough!’ said Haurchefant, his own smile bright as the midday sun. ‘You would be more than welcome here every night, should you wish it.’ 

As tempting as the offer was, Z’kila couldn’t help but consider how impractical that might end up being, not to mention the sheer amount of anima the journeys would entail every night and morning. For now, he would take this night. Outside, the wind was not as ferocious within the walls of the fortress. Snow gathered and twisted in flurries in the corners. The Knights on patrol gathered around the struggling braziers, hunched over with their hands wedged under their arms. A serious watch on the sky had been all but abandoned, shrouded as it was. 

Even in the seven strides to the door to the intercessory, Z’kila’s teeth began to chatter again before the smouldering fire inside helped to dispel the piercing cold. Haurchefant led him up to the room he had stayed in once before, the night after some drunken revelry, which was made up with fresh linen sheets and thick woollen blankets on a large bed, the room’s own fire blazing away. Noting that Haurchefant went so far as to keep the fire burning in a room that most likely wouldn’t get used made Z’kila all the more enticed by his offer. 

‘There is even a nightgown for you in the chest,’ said Haurchefant, sounding far too proud of himself as he indicated with his pointer finger. ‘I can have breakfast provided for you in the morning should you wish to join me, as well. Anything I can offer, it is yours!’ 

Like everything involved with Haurchefant, it was _a lot._ He treated Z’kila like royalty every time he visited, and he never wanted for anything; certainly not company or a willing ear. ‘My thanks,’ he said, and it sounded such a pathetic expression of gratitude besides his host’s generosity. 

Haurchefant scoffed. ‘Never feel indebted to me, Kila. Your presence is thanks enough.’ He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp against the background crackling of the fire. 'Right! I shall leave you to your rest. Sleep well, my dear friend. I hope to see you on the morrow.' 

A brief, small shared smile as Haurchefant closed the door between them, and then Z'kila was alone in the warm chamber. He released a slow sigh, and then stepped up to the bedside cabinet, pulled his daggers from his belt and set them down. He tossed the blanket across his shoulders over the bed, an extra covering to keep out the chill. He could no longer imagine such a thing as _too hot._ Never again would he complain about Thanalan's desert heat. 

Although he preferred to sleep mostly nude, he was curious about this nightgown. Z'kila fished it out of the chest and held up the cascade of periwinkle cloth to his shoulders, surprised to find it a good length for his comparatively shorter form. Curiosity peaked, he checked the back and found- yes, an opening for his tail. No wonder Haurchefant had seemed so proud. 

With a fond shake of his head, he threw the nightgown onto the foot of the bed. Let his host believe he made use of it. 

Z'kila sat on the edge of the mattress and stared into the flickering light behind the grate. The chamber was far warmer, far more comfortable than his shared tent back on Mor Dhona, but it seemed...too big. Too empty. While he often didn't get a chance to speak to G'raha, returning late into the night after the other had already fallen asleep and leaving early in the morning before he rose. But he had grown to find the presence of another person comforting regardless. Alone he was jittery, his own breath too loud. 

He fished his tail brush from a coat pocket and set to work on the clumps of frozen snow stuck into his fur. Sleep may or may not come to him this night, but he at least had something to keep him somewhat occupied.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some miscommunications are cleared up and some some making up (and out) is in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains NSFW content between 2 men, so if that's not your thing then I suggest you skip this one! ♥

After the unexpected and very timely arrival of the Allagan clones, Unei and Doga, and the great doors to Syrcus Tower opened at last, Rammbroes had the open doorway guarded all bells of the day and night in the case of anything nasty crawling out. G’raha protested something fierce when he drew the evening watch alongside Z’kila, but Rammbroes refused to let him swap to the midnight shift. He suspected they’d been put together on purpose, but Azeyma knew why.

Z’kila stood painfully still at G’raha’s side, arms folded across his chest and ears turned back to listen to the eerie depths of Syrcus Tower. Like with the Sentinels, there was a strange hum that was somehow an internal sensation coming from the tower. G’raha paced backwards and forwards in front of the door, ears set back and a scowl on his face. 

Forced to stand guard right at the threshold of the tower would have been bad enough, with this strange, enticing internal _thrum,_ with the whooshing and trickling of water tickling the insides of his ears but unseen in the gloom beyond the doorway, but he had to stand and wait here in painful silence with _Z’kila,_ with all the awkwardness and shame that brought to the forefront of his mind. A structure untouched, unseen for thousands of years, and he was forced to wait at the threshold until Z’kila could gather enough adventurers to head inside and clear it out. 

He released a huff of a sigh, and turned to pace back across the width of the doorway.

‘I have never heard a man sigh as much as you do,’ Z’kila commented, and though he spoke quietly it still came as a shock in the silence of the night with only the low thrum of the tower itself buzzing inside G’raha’s own brain. 

‘Apologies,’ G’raha muttered, and then bit his lip to prevent any more irritating sighs from escaping. 

Silence descended again, tense and brittle. G’raha continued to pace in front of the door, each step carefully soft to keep as quiet as possible. The thrumming of the tower had him restless, impatient, on edge. Z’kila remained still, eerily so, with his ears locked back onto the open doorway. G’raha didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt as though he might vibrate right out of his skin if he was forced to wait here much longer. 

‘It isn’t going anywhere, G’raha,’ Z’kila said after a little while of intolerable silence. ‘You can have your fun as soon as it’s safe.’ 

That was only part of the problem, though. He was eager to get his eyes and hands on the secrets held within the Allagan tower, of course, and his patience was being tested to its limit by asking him to wait right at the threshold with only the gloom to stare at. Z’kila, too, was a frustrating distraction, standing like a taunting statue just outside the great doors, and yet not enough of one to bring him out of his own head. The pull he felt towards the tower’s interior was only partly fuelled by curiosity. There was a _yearning_ in him that had little to do with the malms-long scrolls of new information just waiting for them, although that was still there. 

G’raha swallowed. ‘How long until you let us inside?’ There was a bite to his words offset by a shake in his voice. When he glanced up he found Z’kila’s eyes on him, expression unreadable.

‘There are three parties on standby to head in with me come the morrow,’ he said with a flick of his tail. ‘I expect we’ll be in there a few days. Maybe a week, depending,’ he added, craning his neck up as though he could see to the top of the spire from here. ‘We don’t yet know what we’ll be facing. Maybe it’s completely empty, though I doubt it.’

A grunt was G’raha response. Words weren’t coming easily. 

Silence threatened once again, but Z’kila spoke to prevent another bout of tension. ‘...Did I say something to you?’ 

G’raha froze, his ears pinning flat to his hair. He could feel Z’kila’s eyes on him, but dared not look up to meet them. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Z’kila’s tail flicked again back the other way in G’raha’s periphery. Frustration or confusion? _Well, me too,_ he thought bitterly, turning on his heel to pace the other way. ‘I don’t remember getting so drunk that I can’t remember the night at the Seventh Heaven,’ Z’kila went on, apparently in no mood to let the matter drop. ‘But if I said something insulting or hurtful, then please know that I apologise for it.’

A flick of his own tail and G’raha chewed on his lower lip. No, they had not been _blackout_ drunk on the walk back to the Sons’ camp. He could remember it all in vividly painful detail. Z’kila had said nothing hurtful or insulting; the fault was G’raha’s. For assuming Z’kila could in any capacity be interested in _him._

G’raha knew he should correct him, apologise himself for being so presumptuous, but his humiliation lurked just underneath the surface, made the words get stuck in his throat. 

‘...You didn’t do anything,’ he managed to mumble, ears lowering and his eyes on the floor. 

‘Then tell me why I was under the impression that we were getting along just fine until the morning after, and now you won’t so much as look at me and do your utmost to get yourself out of my company as much as Rammbroes allows.’ The words were harsh, and rightly so, G’raha thought, but he just sounded utterly confused. G’raha glanced up through his lashes, trying to make sense of that stoic face. Could he truly not remember the kisses shared on the edge of the road? G’raha’s attempts to push things further, Z’kila’s rejection?

‘Truly, you did nothing,’ he said again, words coming easier and voice stronger this time. ‘The fault is mine. Apparently I… _struggle_ … with rejection. And for my behaviour I must apologise.’ 

G’raha looked down at the ground beneath his feet. There was every chance he had simply made their relationship all the more awkward, but at least he had righted the misunderstanding. The fault was his, and it was only right that Z’kila knew that. G’raha hoped he would forgive him- maybe they could at least return to being friendly toward each other, even if another night drinking and singing at the Seventh Heaven was beyond the realm of possibility. 

But Z’kila said nothing. For many long moments, there was nothing but silence.

Risking a glance up, G’raha found him looking straight back with a slight furrow between his eyebrows. G’raha swallowed; was he still angry? ‘Pray forgive my memory,’ Z’kila said at length, speaking slowly, as though choosing each word with care, ‘but I don’t recall rejecting you.’ 

A beat of stillness, and G’raha blinked. A dusting of pink appeared on his cheekbones and he looked away again to his feet. He cleared his throat. One could very easily misconstrue words like that to mean that Z’kila was interested after all, and he didn’t think he could handle another disappointment. ‘No matter. I still shouldn’t have reacted like I blamed you. In truth I was just embarrassed-’ 

He turned and Z’kila was there, eyes of shining steel fixed intently on G’raha’s mismatched gaze. An instant later he had them both locked in an entangled embrace, lips pressed roughly together. 

G’raha was frozen for a moment, and then he melted. Clawed fingers curled into the shoulders of his leather hunting coat. Z’kila’s hands splayed at the small of G’raha’s back, pulling him close. Mouths pressed together, slid over one another. Z’kila drew G’raha’s lower lip between his own, sucking gently and drawing out a pathetic whimper. 

He doesn’t understand. What had changed? Three days ago Z’kila had told him no, and he had accepted it. He’d been disappointed, and handled that disappointment badly, but accepted it. G’raha couldn’t think straight with Z’kila’s mouth on his, with his lip being nibbled, with the tip of his tongue ghosting a touch to the edge of his teeth. He felt as though he was simultaneously drowning and breathing the purest of air all at once. 

Z’kila had enjoyed kissing him last time too. The rejection came afterwards. When G’raha tried to take things further. 

His head hazy with the kiss, with confusion, with _everything,_ G’raha bit down hard on Z’kila’s lower lip. 

‘ _Ouch!_ ’ he snapped, yanking away and bringing one hand up to press to his mouth. 

‘Why do you insist on toying with me?!’ G’raha demanded, although his panting made him sound simply whiny. 

Z’kila’s fingers came away smeared with blood. ‘ _Excuse me?_ ’ he asked, voice dangerously cold. ‘If I misunderstood then I do apologise, but don’t try to accuse me of being the one to toy with _you._ ’ 

‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’ 

A roll of steel silver eyes as he sucked the blood from his fingers. G’raha felt dizzy at the visage, but refused to back down. ‘You look at me with fluttering lashes and blushing cheeks and apologise for being just _so disappointed_ with my rejection, when I did nothing of the sort, and then _bite_ me when I kiss you again to prove that. What do you want, G’raha? Do you want me or not?’ 

‘Yes, we kissed on the road back from Revenant’s Toll, I remember _very_ well,’ G’raha hissed. ‘And I remember just as well how much you enjoyed it. Until- not anymore. _Raha, stop._ So I did. And you kiss me again now. I don’t understand what _you_ want, Z’kila.’ 

A dawning of comprehension crosses Z’kila’s face. Another roll of the eyes, but with far less malice. ‘I told you to stop because we were both very drunk.’

G’raha frowned. ‘So?’ 

‘ _So_ I had no idea whether it was you or the alcohol that wanted that, and I was not going to take the risk of letting you regret it. Besides, the way things were heading, it’s a bad idea to do anything of the kind when you’re that intoxicated. Trust me.’ 

It was as though the gears in G’raha’s mind had ground to a halt. His eyes darted over Z’kila’s, the bleeding lip that had been intoxicating all on its own, the hands that had gripped him, held him close. ‘You mean—that was the only reason you told me to stop?’ 

Z’kila’s ears flicked down. ‘It’s an important reason. I planned to seek you out the next day to see how you felt about it sober, but-’

Whatever he was going to say G’raha would never hear. He launched himself at Z’kila, taking hold of the lapels of his hunting coat and crushing their mouths back together. He swallowed a surprised noise from Z’kila’s throat and shoved him back into the wall, right on the threshold of the great Allagan doors. Their teeth clacked and Z’kila released a soft grunt, pressed between the wall and G’raha. Hands come up to clutch at his waist, bunching the fabric of his doublet. A quiet moan escaped at the taste of Z’kila’s blood on his tongue, mixed with the general taste of _him_ that he could grow addicted to: sweet, and slightly grassy, the soft and yielding flesh of lips and tongue contrasting with the sharp edge of teeth. 

G’raha liked kissing Z’kila. There was very little he felt he would rather ever do again. He leant into him, feeling as much of him against his own body as he could manage while hands trailed down to the fastening on his coat. As much as he would have gladly kissed Z’kila for bells, there were many other things he wanted to do now that he'd been given explicit permission. 

He nibbled gently, so gently, at that bruised and bloodied lip and flicked his tail, pleased by the small groan it drew from Z’kila. Moving from his addictive lips, G’raha paid closer attention to the corner of his mouth, his jaw, the column of his throat. Z’kila bared his neck to him, offering easier access to all of his vulnerable points, and G’raha rewarded him with a rumbling purr. He kissed with soft lips, laved with the flat and point of his tongue, nipped small bruises into olive skin with his teeth. 

Heart racing loud in G’raha’s ears, his own and Z’kila’s so close to his pulse point, he enjoyed the wild tense and release of the grip on his sides, pulling and clutching at his doublet. Z’kila’s breath was still carefully composed in his chest, which only served to fuel G’raha’s urge to completely undo him. 

Sober fingers made quick work of that coat buckle. G’raha pushed it aside to give him access to Z’kila’s chest, light musculature finely defined beneath smooth, unmarred skin. His eyes took in the lines, the angles, the curves of his torso before he delved back in to _taste._

A shaky sigh escaped Z’kila as G’raha worked his tongue over one dusky nipple. The fingers at his sides slipped under his clothes to dig into his skin instead, blunted claws sending pinpricks of levin-like sensation all across G’raha’s body. His own hands wandered the length and breadth of Z’kila, the hard ripple of ribs dipping just slightly into a softer waist, leading to the firm lines and bumps of abdominals. Fingertips flitted lower, to trace the trail of fine bronze hair down to his waistband. 

G’raha paused when he felt Z’kila shift under him, eyes looking up at his face beneath thick lashes. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked in a whisper. 

‘ _Gods,_ no,’ Z’kila muttered back, much to his pleasure, even as he looked off into the gloom of the tower. ‘I’m just not sure we’re in the best place.’ 

‘Best keep your voice down and your ears open, then,’ G’raha teased, dipping his fingers down behind Z’kila’s waistband. A breathless huff of a laugh was the only response he received, but the tension eased a fraction. He followed the sharp, hard lines of his hips, drawing his hands inward closer to his ultimate target. Stomach muscles jumped and twitched under his touch. 

He withdrew for a moment to pull on that belt trying to keep him from what he wanted. G’raha batted away Z’kila’s hands when he reached to try and help. The buckle clinked, the sound of his success, and his attention immediately returned to Z’kila’s skin. He kissed and nipped his way down the line of his sternum, pulling at the skin between his teeth to leave pale pink marks behind. Fingers hooked into the waistband of Z’kila’s trousers as he knelt to mark his way down the rises and dips of subtle abdominal muscles. 

A pause, a tease for himself as much as Z’kila. A glance up beneath hooded eyelids to take in steely eyes, dilated pupils blown round and the beginnings of a flush across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Emboldened by the sight, G’raha nosed into his groin and was rewarded with a full-bodied twitch. He traced the outline of his hardened member through the layers of cloth first with his nose, and then with his lips, learning the relative size and shape of him. The suspense intensified the heat growing in his gut, desperate to get into those loose trousers and take him in with every sense he had. 

One hand came down to brush back G'raha's hair from his mismatched eyes, fingers carding through auburn strands to stroke a thumb up the edge of an ear. G'raha purred at the contact, the affectionate touch. Above, Z'kila's head thumped back against the wall. 

Tail curling in arousal, G’raha eased Z’kila’s trousers and smalls down his thighs. That hand twitched around his ear and, as difficult as it was to look away from Z’kila’s member now that it was within reach, he glanced up to check in. His companion was staring into the darkness of the tower beyond, though whether he was seeing anything at all was a mystery. G’raha waited for Z’kila to look down at him, forcing back his impatience. ‘Is this okay?’ he whispers, hands coming up to rest on his hips. 

‘As far as you’re okay, G’raha,’ Z’kila muttered back through clenched teeth. 

G’raha grinned, nosing in close to the base of his length. ‘ _Raha,_ ’ he breathed against him before licking a stripe up the underside. Z’kila released a breath in a shaky huff, shaped into an echo of G’raha’s name as fingers tightened against his scalp and pulled a few strands free of his braid. 

Eyes latched onto Z’kila’s face as he took him into his mouth. He sank halfway down, as much as he was comfortable to take, before coming back up with a swipe of his tongue. A hint of salt and bitterness at the tip. Fingers pulled more auburn locks free of their binds, tightening and releasing in time with G'raha's ministrations. A trace to the outer edges of one ear before delving back into his hair as he took him back in, pushing _just_ past his limits to press against the back of his throat. 

A quiet moan was his reward, barely more than a whimper, sending a thrill of mixed pride and pure heat through G'raha. As much as he yearned to touch himself, far too uncomfortable in the confines of his clothes, his hands were enjoying the bunching and twitching of muscles in Z’kila’s thighs. 

_G’raha_ was causing that. _Him._

His hands reached back, coming to curl around each side of his rear, and squeezed as he took Z’kila down again, pushing himself further still. Another quiet moan, and he dug his claws into that supple flesh. Another time, if he had that chance, he wanted to sink his teeth into it, glorious as it was in his palms. He wanted more. Of _everything._ G’raha wanted him moaning, breathless, writhing, and to be the one to bring it out of this stoic living legend. 

Hands braced on firm buttocks, claws digging pinprick indents into the flesh, G'raha began a metronomic rhythm of swallowing him down as far as he could and then pushing a fraction further, before coming back up with a press and swipe of his tongue. Each bob of his head brought a bead of fluid to the tip to be promptly licked away. Z’kila twitched and jerked under G’raha’s hands, his mouth. Whispered moans, quiet gasps. 

G’raha wanted _more._

Fingers crept upward to the base of Z’kila’s tail, encircling the sensitive skin where it joined his spine. The motion earned him a quiet moan from above, which sent a thrill straight to his gut. One hand latched onto that restless bronze tail and _yanked._

Z’kila hissed, the sound turning into a groan as he grasped the back of G’raha’s head, pitched forward and thrusted deep. 

G’raha choked on the intrusion, tears springing to his eyes and saliva spilling from the corners of his mouth. Z’kila backed off immediately. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, flushed red from his hairline down to his collar, as he brushed G’raha’s wild hair off his face while he struggled to catch his breath. 

‘I’m fine, I’m okay,’ he whispered back, voice entirely wrecked, as soon as he could speak again. _That_ had been the reaction he wanted, and he intended to take more like it as soon as he could get his mouth back on that member, now a deep red and glistening in the pale luminescence of the tower. Poor Z’kila was frozen in place, hands still in G’raha’s hair. Staring up into that concerned expression, he felt a familiar cold dread. _Please don’t tell me to stop now. Please._

But then he heard it- very clear, heavy footsteps heading right for them. 

G’raha scrambled to his feet as Z’kila wrenched up his trousers with a whispered curse. Buckles clinked too loudly back into place and mussed hair too wild to fix was pulled out of its bind to be left loose around G’raha’s shoulders. Z’kila turned his back on whoever approached, glaring into the gloom of the tower instead while the flush faded. 

The pair of them were a comedic sight for Biggs and Wedge as they drew near; Z’kila with his back resolutely turned and G’raha leaning against the doorway trying his utmost to appear bored in spite of the galloping heart trying to escape his ribcage. With a glance up, he saw that Z’kila was still red about the face, just as surely as he was. If Biggs and Wedge suspected anything—and surely they must—he just hoped that they wouldn’t guess _exactly_ what they were doing. Rammbroes would box him about the ears if he found out. 

‘Evening, fellas!’ Biggs called over with a wave of one massive hand, the other holding onto a flaming torch. ‘Lose your hair tie, G’raha?’ 

G’raha shrugged back, feigning tiredness. Thank Azeyma it was so dark. Roegadyn and Lalafell eyes wouldn’t be able to pick up the mutual blushing, surely. Z’kila half-turned to glance over his shoulder, as though he had just noticed their arrival. ‘Are we free to go back to sleep?’ he asked in that casual drawl of his. 

Biggs and Wedge shared a glance that made G’raha look straight to his feet, face burning. ‘If there’s nothing to report, the two of you can go on ahead back to camp!’ said Wedge with a grin that showed his teeth. Z’kila gave no outward sign of noticing anything other than an irritable flick of his tail. 

‘Not so much as a whisper from in there,’ he said, jerking his chin into the tower. ‘Give us a call on the linkshell if anything shows up.’ He waved away the offered torch. ‘Miqo’te eyes, we can see just fine. Good night.’ 

He strode off down the long covered hallway leading away from the great doors. G’raha shrugged away from the wall and followed, tail clamped down to keep it from thrashing around and giving away his agitation. ‘Have a nice _rest!_ ’ Wedge called after them, the grin audible in his voice. Z’kila’s ears gave a slight twitch, but he simply waved over his shoulder without looking back. G’raha kept close to his flank as the bright orange torch faded to leave them in the dim blue of the tower’s own light. 

They walked in silence, long after Biggs and Wedge were far out of range of seeing or hearing them. Torn between wanting to jump straight back into Z’kila’s smalls and melting into a puddle of embarrassment, G’raha could feel the tension like a weighted blanket. It made the tips of his fingers tingle with a need to grab hold of him again, any part of him; his coat, his hair, his hands, his rear, _anything._

And so he did.

He launched himself at Z’kila, pinning him to the rocky crag beside the road with hands on his shoulders so that he could crush their lips together. Z’kila made a small, muffled noise of surprise before his hands came up to bury in G’raha’s loose hair. A moment of intense pressure- and then Z’kila eased them apart. 

‘Not here,’ he whispered, teeth glinting white in the darkness. ‘We’re like to be set upon by a gigas if we let our guard down, and I’d rather not be caught with my trousers around my ankles again.’ 

‘Whyever not?’ G’raha asked with an exaggerated pout, and then mirrored the sly, rebellious grin on Z’kila’s face. ‘You know, canvas walls don't do much to muffle sound…’

‘You’d best keep quiet then.’ Z’kila winked, and slipped out of G’raha’s reach. His tail reached to curl around one thigh as he stepped away, the muted drag of fur against the sensitive area a titillating tease. G’raha stalked after him, his own tail beginning to thrash from side to side. 

Like a pair of giggling schoolboys out of bed after hours, they returned to the camp, trying and failing to sneak back to their shared tent in silence to continue their fumblings. Fingers brushed and grabbed at hands, arms, waists. Plans were already forming the G’raha’s mind of how he wanted to take Z’kila completely apart as soon as they had some semblance of privacy, and the blazing ache in his groin fuelled his imagination to the point he could barely breathe. 

He had one hand on the flap of their tent, gaze lingering on Z’kila’s, when- ‘Ah, glad I caught you both.’ 

G’raha and Z’kila leapt apart from each other even though they hadn’t been touching, looking up at the looming figure of Rammbroes with identical wide-eyed expressions. He looked between them and G’raha prayed that the dwindling firelight in the braziers would mask their reddened faces; or at least, the more obvious evidence of their intentions at his crotch. At least Z’kila’s coat covered him up. 

‘Z’kila, you’ve been summoned back to Mor Dhona,’ said Rammbroes. ‘I don’t know the specifics, but I’ve been assured a proper feather bed awaits you.’ G’raha chanced a glance at Z’kila. His expression remained largely passive, but a muscle jumped in his jaw and his tail gave an irritable flick. ‘G’raha, I know you must be tired but a new tomestone has been transcribed with mentions of Syrcus Tower and I’d like you to take a look at its contents before we send our friend here inside.’

G’raha’s ears flicked down to his hair and his mouth pushed into a pout, less practised at hiding his annoyance than his companion. Denied the chance to bring Z’kila his pleasure, _twice,_ and now denied the chance to find his own by himself as well, his tail gave a much more telling thrash. 

Rammbroes offered him a curious smile. ‘Would you rather leave it, G’raha? I know you must be tired, but you’ve been so irritable lately I thought this would come as some good news.’

Once the blood returned to his brain, G’raha no doubt would be more than eager to get his hands on this transcript. He would give himself away if he looked at Z’kila again, as much as he longed to. Forcing his ears up off his head, he said, ‘I’ll gladly go through it tonight. Anything I can do to help.’ 

A suspicious narrowing of the eyes, but Rammbroes nodded to him. ‘We’ll see you bright and early, I’m sure,’ he said to Z’kila, and then turned on his heel, a silent expectation that G’raha would follow. He glanced up to meet Z’kila’s eyes, probably looking quite pathetic in his disappointment. The other said nothing, but the corners of his mouth pulled up a fraction, a promise hidden in the movement. A flick of a wink and then he walked off in the direction of the chocobos. G’raha watched him go, and then pulled himself together with a deep breath. 

Following Rammbroes, he set his jaw and lifted his chin. Z’kila was going to do his part, regardless of the sacrifices he had to make to do it. As small a part as he might play, G’raha endeavoured to do the same.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Z'kila leads an party of adventurers inside to rid the place of hostilities now that the doors to the legendary Syrcus Tower are open before the scholars can get their hands on it. While everyone is in agreement that the knowledge hidden away inside needs must be sealed off, Z'kila can't help but snatch a few snippets for a certain someone.

The Crystal Tower stood a shining azure beacon, a luminous jagged crack in the inky black sky that the stars themselves seemed to reflect. Z’kila couldn’t imagine the Mor Dhona horizon without it, though he knew it had only popped up five years prior.

He sat perched atop the skeleton of what was going to be an aqueduct, arms loosely encompassing his knees. The eastern edge of the skyline would be turning a faint pink soon, he knew, and was yet to find sleep. Or even go searching for it. He was quite content to give it up as a lost cause at this point- Rammbroes was expecting him and his army of adventurers to head into Syrcus Tower bright and early, and he doubted dreams of mismatched eyes of sapphire and ruby would let him wake well-rested and clear-headed anyway. Good old Tataru, bless her kind heart, had already sorted his pack for him by the time he returned to the Rising Stones.

He suspected they would be inside for several days, weeks maybe, depending on what they found. Z’kila was used to long, deep delves into dangerous places by now, and sometimes didn’t even complain about it. But he was a little miffed about the timing of this one, it had to be said.

Well, he thought as the first signs of a pinkish hue began to overtake the night where the land met the sky, he would just have to make up for it once the Tower was clear. There would be plenty of time for bedroll shenanigans then; assuming he could entice G’raha away from all of the Allagan secrets within for long enough.

Z’kila made his way down from the unfinished aqueduct, hopping between jagged stone walls still under construction and wooden scaffolding down to the road. Letting himself into the Seventh Heaven, deserted of its usual barkeep and patrons, he took a seat at one of the tables and settled his chin on his arms to wait for the sun to rise and for the adventurers to gather.

Eyelids heavy and stinging, he was on the verge of drifting off when someone joined him at his empty table in the gloom. An ear flicked in their direction and he let his nose identify her. ‘A bit early for you, isn’t it?’ he asked, mumbling in his fatigue.

‘And a bit late for you,’ Y’shtola retorted without hesitation, her demeanor entirely composed and brooking no argument, as usual. She set a cup down in front of him and the tendrils of coffee-scented steam tickled his nostrils enough to make him open his eyes.

'It isn't late if I don't intend to sleep,' he argued, wrapping his fingers around the cup handle and wrinkling his nose in anticipation of the bitter wash across his tongue.

‘I doubt whether intending to or not will make much of a difference,’ she returned, lifting to sip from her own cup with one hand and holding a written report in the other while her eyes remained pointedly on Z’kila’s for an extended moment. He made a face at her and sipped from his drink to save himself from answering. ‘I know you’re off on some mission or other for the Sons of Saint Coinach come morning and I don’t think you’ll be much use to them semi-conscious.’

Z’kila repressed a grimace. ‘I’m afraid that information is top secret and I couldn’t possibly comment,’ he said with a wide, sardonic smile.

‘Mhm,’ she intoned, sliding teal eyes down to the report in her grasp.

A beat of silence followed while she examined whatever was written on her parchment. Z’kila eyed her through his lashes over the brim of his cup. ‘Did you really get up so early just to _not_ tell me to go to bed?’

‘Self-importance doesn’t become you,’ she said without looking up.

‘Oh, apologies, I didn’t realise coffee and written reports at three bells past midnight was your usual routine.’

‘I would kindly remind you that you are not privy to my usual routine.'

Z'kila snorted. ' _Kindly._ '

'I would _also_ remind you that you aren't any use to anyone too exhausted to stand on your own two feet. And you would think to lead a veritable army of adventurers come dawn into whatever undoubtedly perilous place-'

'While I am truly _honoured_ to be graced with such concern, I assure you I am sufficiently rested,' he retorted, the words clipped around the edges.

Y'shtola lifted her eyes to him again, the twinkling blues and greens muted into a steely glare. 'As much as it pains me to say it, you would be sorely missed should a distraction or slow reaction bring about your downfall. Just- make sure you return to us in one piece.'

A twisted, lopsided grin stretched at Z'kila's mouth even as he showed her the backs of his ears. 'Yes, I imagine my death would be quite the inconvenience.'

'Quite,' she returned with frustrating ease, refusing to bite, attention turning back to the report in hand.

The irritable flick of his tail was trickier to conceal and he turned his blank-eyed stare to the window instead. She and the rest of the Scions were so quick to tell him he needed to rest. Commented on the shadows beneath his eyes and that he needed sleep. Yda had tried to shepherd him to one of the beds in the Rising Stones dormitory on several occasions, but that didn’t compel him to find sleep and she gave up eventually. Strangely enough, bells of snatched sleep on the stiff cot in the tent among the Sons were the most consistently nightmare-free he’d had in moons.

Z’kila resented Alphinaud for calling him back here, in that instant, for little reason other than to inform him of the Crystal Braves’ inaugural ceremony. Not that he would be getting much sleep if he’d stayed with G’raha either, but it would have been a preferred kind of _not_ resting than receiving a lecture _about_ not resting.

‘Lord Haurchefant is pleased with the Crystal Braves monitoring the road, I presume?’ Y’shtola asked after a long moment of listening to the breeze whistle down the chimney.

Z’kila shrugged. ‘I presume as much as you do,’ he answered coolly. ‘How would I know?’

She offered a delicate half-shrug of her own. ‘Forgive my assumption. If you aren’t loitering around the Sons of Saint Coinach when Master Alphinaud isn’t sending you hither and thither on some errand or other, then you’re usually north of the border.’

He took a breath to ask how she could possibly know where he was on any given day, but decided he’d rather not question. Y’shtola had the uncanny ability to know more or less everything about anything and he’d long given up wondering how. ‘I haven’t heard any complaints, but I suggest sending a missive yourself if you have concerns.’

‘ _Concerns_ might be a bit of an overstatement,’ she mused, straightening out the lower half of her curling parchment. She did not elaborate, and Z’kila didn’t press. He was best left out of the politics behind the Scions’ operations.

The foray into the Labyrinth had been a long excursion, bells upon bells of battling various voidsent and Allagan constructions before any sign of its end was reached. Approaching Syrcus Tower at the head of the collection of the adventurers he had managed to round up, many of them returning from the previous expedition, Z’kila knew this would be very different. In addition to the array of weapons strapped to hips and backs, each and every one of them carried a survival pack holding rations and bedrolls.

The first step into the tower’s interior was an easy one, as were the ones that followed. For a long moment, the echo of footsteps from the twenty-some party was the only sound in the dark. Without warning, without sound, the tower lit up. Z’kila froze, as did the adventurers behind him; hands went to weapons as eyes followed the illuminating lines of the blue crystal stretch across the staircases and spiral upwards in sharp, zig-zagging lines. A thrum began that couldn’t be heard so much as felt, like a hummingbird heartbeat of the structure.

Z’kila lifted a hand to check the linkpearl was still in place just inside his right ear. He tried not to think too much about being trapped inside with Twelve knew what sort of Allagan creatures and contraptions. He took a breath and willed himself not to turn around to look through the open doors. G’raha hadn’t been a part of the group that had seen him and the adventurers off on their excursion, and Z’kila caught himself wondering if he was watching from some hidden place or entirely uninterested in this next leg of the expedition until Syrcus Tower was clear for exploration.

The illumination was still dim, but at least they could now take stock of their surroundings. The rush of water that had haunted Z’kila during his watch last night came from two thin curtains of falling water on either side of the entrance hall. A great stone staircase rose right ahead of them. They had to crane their necks to catch a glimpse of where it might lead. Vast pools of water took up most of the hall’s floor space, but Z’kila couldn’t work out whether the designs on the walls were simply decorative or whether they marked more overly complicated doors.

‘What first, boss?’ asked the hyur at Z’kila’s elbow, a lick of sarcasm about his voice. He was a veteran of Ishgard’s dragoons and seemed to have taken a disliking to taking orders from someone as green as Z’kila.

He took another glance around the vast hall. The echo of their voices changed just slightly by the presence of so much water, more warbling, fluid. ‘We clear every circle before we head up to the next,’ he announced. ‘We’re not just clearing a path this time, we’re making the tower as safe as possible for the Ironworks and Sons to come in and find a way to seal it off. I’m sorry to begin this journey so uncomfortable, but we’re going to have to do some wading.’

Thus how the expedition began; there was much wading through shallow pools and pressing palms to solid walls and tracing gently-glowing lines of blue crystal. Allagan royalty must have really liked the element of water, Z’kila thought. Even the crystal of the tower itself looked like that of the water-aspected variety to his eyes. This first leg was a rather dull affair; there were no traps, or creatures, or contraptions, or even any corridors or rooms leading off this lower ring entrance hall.

‘The lower ring is clear,’ Z’kila said into his linkpearl once the twenty-four of them reconvened, quite certain there was nothing threatening to be found down here. No doors, hidden or otherwise.

‘We should push on up,’ said the dragoon veteran, staring upwards. Yearning for a battle, most like, or at least something more interesting than stone walls.

Without a portable chronometer among them, there was no way of knowing how long they had spent examining the lower hall but Z’kila estimated the staircase would take them the better part of a bell to climb before there was any sign of the next ring. ‘If everyone has the energy to spare, we can push on,’ he answered. ‘Just be prepared to fight, in case we happen upon something that requires more attention than waterfalls.’

As physically fit and athletic as this group was, running up ten flights of stairs seemed a waste of energy when they had no idea what awaited them. Z’kila took up the rear, eyes on those ahead of him in case anything swooped in on them from above. Just one flight up, however, he was distracted by the stone carvings in the wall. A five by six grid of squares holding geometric patterns caught and held his attention. Seven of the squares’ patterns glowed the same luminous shade of blue.

Z’kila hadn’t a hope in any of the seven hells of knowing what it meant or indicated, but he dug his journal out of his pack all the same. An immediate glance didn’t show any identical patterns to the ones G’raha had spotted in the labyrinth, copied down in a rough sketch, but they were of a similar design. He cast a glance up to the tail end of the climbing party. He didn’t have time to sketch every single pattern out into his book, but he could copy the simpler designs of the glowing stones. He drew the grid and filled in the seven glowing patterns into their corresponding places.

He knew G’raha and the entire team of scholars would be following him soon enough, but a curious part of him wondered if the pattern would change.

‘Will you be joining us anytime soon?’ called a female voice, and when he looked up the Keeper conjurer was eyeing him from the top of the next staircase, staff set on the stone and her tail flicking with impatience.

‘On my way,’ he called up, tucking his journal away and scampering up the steps to join her.

This expedition didn’t maintain the urgent pace of the Labyrinth. Z’kila hadn’t expected it to, but now that they were climbing staircase after staircase with nothing but idle chatter to entertain them, he rather dreaded the next however many days this adventure would last. Their boredom had a brief reprieve halfway up the stone staircases when they were set upon by a myriad of _people_ of all things, fighting in the style of the shinobi.

The party hesitated at first, taken aback by the presence of Spoken rather than creatures or constructs, but the aggression of their adversaries left little room for debate. They fell into awkward formation, unused to working with each other, to take them down. There was an odd glow about their eyes and Z’kila made a private guess that Unei and Doga weren’t the only clones that lingered from the age of Allag.

 _Chaotic_ would be the word to describe the battle on this platform halfway up the endless staircase. They were grossly outnumbered. Z’kila darted between his comrades, crouching behind a shield before throwing himself onto the shoulders of one of the clones, one dagger sinking into its neck while the other snuck under ribs. An arrow zipped by his ear as he followed it to the ground and wrenched both blades free. He turned and another arrow whistled by, striking a clone in the eye to his right.

Were they clones? Z’kila had no idea, and very little inclination to find out.

Whatever they were, more seemed to to appear with every one they took down. They made no noise as they attacked, as they fell, eerily silent figures that looked much the same in death as they did in life. If it could be called that. Roars and cries of his comrades echoed in the vast chamber. A scream cut through the carnage.

Z’kila darted back into the throng of the party, trying to remain as hidden as possible on this otherwise blank and boring stone platform. He leapt over a thrusting lance, ducked under a swinging longsword and danced out of the way of a pugilist’s blurred fists.

An axe swung in Z’kila’s periphery and he leapt for it. Hopping onto the head of that axe as its wielder, a huge Hellsguard roegadyn, pulled it back for another attack, he crouched to find his balance with his tail curled outwards and tightened his fingers around the hilts of his daggers. The swing took off the head of a clone- and sent Z’kila flying. Diving for another, lunging from behind the first, Z’kila set his dagger points down to sink straight through both eye-sockets. His blood sang with the thrill of it. He backflipped off its shoulders before it could crumple, darting back between two meatier members of the party.

A dagger thrown into the back of a clone, right around the kidneys, marked the end of the battle. Arms remained drawn and raised as eyes scanned the platforms, the pools, the staircases for anymore waves of clones or...whatever they were. Panting echoed about the vast chamber like the whispers of ghosts. Someone struggled to suppress pained gasped.

‘What in the seven hells was that about?’ asked the axe-wielder, her weapon resting on one shoulder like it weighed no more than a hatchet. ‘No one said anything to me about _people_ guarding this place.’

‘You came on the wrong expedition if you wanted to know what to expect,’ Z’kila returned, sheathing bloodsoaked blades into his belt. How far into the day they were, Z'kila couldn't tell. But at least four of their number were injured and who knew what might await them through the corridors leading off this platform, or up the stairs. 'We'll make camp here. Have something to eat, rest up. Rotate whoever's on watch.'

He ignored the way the dragoon veteran's nose turned up at the instructions and went to find which one of the twenty-four dropped packs was his.

A fire crackled in the middle of the platform within moments, heating up various rationed foods brought along and shared out, but there was no need for its warmth. Z’kila had entered the tower expecting it to grow intolerably cold, constructed of crystal as it was, but he felt neither warm nor cold. There was a strange regulation of temperature in the stagnant air.

Z’kila wandered a short way from the makeshift encampment, each step careful and silent on the stone. He went without his own share of the rations, no stranger to hunger and unsure how long they would need them. With a suspicious glance at the pools of water all around them, he allowed himself a sip from a waterskin. He didn’t go far; there was little point dragging twenty-three others with him on this venture if he was going to wander off on his own at the first opportunity. Staying within eyeline of the party, Z’kila approached a second grid of glyphs pressed into the far wall, very like the one on the ring below- identical, he discovered upon opening his notebook to check. The glowing glyphs were the same shapes in the same positions on the grid.

A quick glance down the corridors branching off either side of the towering staircase, but no hint as to what might lie down them and so he returned to the safety of the group. Even within reach of the fire’s heat, Z’kila felt neither warm nor cold. Unnerved, he pulled his bedroll out of its radius and wriggled into it, using his shirt as a makeshift pillow. He lay on his back, listening to the various mumbled conversations going on around him.

Z’kila already disliked the thrum about the tower. Less noticeable in battle, the relative quiet of their temporary encampment heightened his sensitivity to it. It seemed to mess with his sight, with his hearing even though there was nothing visual or audible about it.

He woke with a gasp, legs flailing to escape the confines of his bedroll. Horrified faces floated about his vision, jaws slack and eyes wide in the throes of death. The heat of blood tangible on his hands. Cold sweat pasted his hair to his neck and face. He wriggled free of his bedroll and shoved his daggers into his belt.

The camp was silent, save for the snuffling and rustling of sleeping bodies. The two on watch, a conjurer and the axe-wielding roegadyn, stared at him as he rose in his undershirt, leaving his damp shirt behind in his bedroll.

‘Get yourselves some rest,’ he said to the pair of them as he walked past, his voice breathless and wavering.

‘...Do you want to talk about it?’ asked the roegadyn.

‘No.’

He didn’t look at her, didn’t look at anyone, but instead glared up at the staircases rising high above them, almost identical to the ones they had climbed already. He set his feet folded his arms, as still as a statue while he waited for the other two to disappear into their bedrolls. A glance over his shoulder to make sure there were no eyes on him, and then he buried his face in his hands with a silent groan. Fingers clawed back through his hair to grip at his ears.

The nightmares had been waning. For weeks after the siege on Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium they had plagued him every night without reprieve, so much so that he began refusing to sleep until his body collapsed from underneath him. In the moons since he started sharing a too-small tent with another body each night, they had started to recede. Sometimes he woke with the residual feeling of all-consuming guilt but no lucid memories. Sometimes he didn’t dream at all. He had even started risking sleep at a more reasonable bell, listening to the soft purring snores of G’raha just fulms away.

He hadn’t woken in a panic like that for a long time, with the faces of those he’d killed lingering in his mind.

Fortifying himself with a deep breath, Z’kila returned his attention to his immediate surroundings. He patrolled the perimeter on silent toes while he waited for the party to stir. There was no way for him to guess how far into the night they were; he simply knew that he would not be sleeping again anytime soon.

The two branching corridors proved to be nothing more than storage rooms of some kind. There were no more guards of any description, no traps and no unbreachable doors. Floor to ceiling shelves were empty, without even any tomestones to sneak into pockets. There was little doubt that there weren’t any other hidden doors around the platform, similar as it was to the ground floor, but they waded through to pools all the same to check.

Boots sloshing and knees wet, they hauled their packs up yet more endless, monotonous staircases. The lack of sunlight and the _damn thrumming_ played havoc with Z’kila’s sense of time. A bell or six might have passed since beginning the ascent before he spotted any sign of its end. He lagged at the back of the group, conserving as much of his energy as he could under the guise of keeping an eye on the rest of the party. An entirely sleepless night followed by what felt like only a couple of bells of rest did not a good combination make for a long expedition.

A prowling abomination of an amalgamated monster awaited them on the next floor. A four-legged, two-armed creature with far too many extra paws sticking out of its abdomen, and equally far too many shark-like heads sticking out of the golden-skinned torso of a man. Z’kila caught up to the group and noted the mix of disgust and bewilderment on their faces before he spotted the creature, pacing the length of the platform in eerie patience. One, or perhaps more, of its heads appraised them with an intelligence that made his skin crawl.

'Back into formation!' the veteran barked when Z'kila said nothing. 'This thing's no different to what we fought downstairs. Pull yourselves together!'

It was _very_ different to the clone-things they fought the day before, Z'kila thought, and had he the energy or inclination he would have said as much. Instead he simply pulled his daggers out of his belt, waited for those of the party carrying shields to engage and for his own adrenaline to kick in.

He struggled to recall exactly how the fight had gone afterwards, staring at a blank page in his notebook titled _Second Floor._ His knuckles cracked and ached with residual ice-aspected aether around his quill, and not very far away someone was being treated for burns. It had been a bizarre battle with orbs and fire and ice and puddles. Z’kila had never been frozen solid before and he’d much rather never experience such a soul-chilling thing ever again.

The party had allowed themselves a short reprieve after the battle with the...thing with too many appendages and some were starting to stir. Z’kila settled for a brief, scribbled description of their adversary and tucked the book back into his pack.

There were a handful of injuries to go around, but nothing that healing magic couldn't patch up or numb. Z'kila stifled a yawn and joined those of the group in the best shape to start the arduous task of making sure the rest of the floor was clear. This was only the third floor up and he was already bored of this part.

The platform itself had no corridors leading off of it, and none of the surrounding walls bore secret doors, to no one’s surprise. The staircase, however, led up to an unexpected latticework of pathways, the extent of them revealed by a complete lack of internal walls.

‘Is it unexpected?’ retorted the Keeper conjurer when Z’kila shared his thoughts, throwing her weight into one hip. ‘We had to explore a literal labyrinth to get here.’

‘We should split up. Sweep each path in groups of three or four and rejoin before we continue upwards,’ said the veteran, latching onto newfound authority. ‘Saves time and energy that way.’

‘And what if you stumble across another guardian?’ challenged the roegadyn.

The veteran pointed upwards. ‘I expect that’s where we can expect another guardian to be waiting for us.’ The drab stone disappeared to make way for the next platform, a spiral of staircases away, constructed entirely of the same glowing blue crystal that made up the outer walls of the Tower. It was gilded with a metal that may well have been pure gold. Considering where they were, Z’kila expected so.

‘Split up, then,’ Z’kila said, quite happy to follow orders rather than give them.

‘And if a group needs help, what then?’ demanded a lalafellin thaumaturge, banging the point of his staff on the stone.

Z’kila spread his arms wide. ‘Considering the open plan of this place, not to mention the echo, I think a shout of _help!_ might suffice.’ He picked a path at random, trusting the others to sort themselves out. While he knew he was proving to be a very poor leader indeed, he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. The veteran had a better idea of what instructions to give anyhow, and seemed to enjoy the role far more than Z’kila ever would.

He was joined on his chosen route by the veteran himself, apparently not wanting to stray too far, as well as the axe-wielder and the Keeper conjurer. Even split up as they were, a complete sweep of every pathway at this level of the tower took a mind-numbingly long time. There were so many different turns and corners and loops that seemed to lead nowhere that groups kept bumping into one another and retracing paths that had already been swept. Rooms appeared to be empty save for a few strange contraptions that talked at them in unnatural voices, words shaped by sounds that no living creature could produce. Spooked, the roegadyn wanted to smash them apart but the conjurer managed to assuage her with the logic that aggression may well be met with aggression.

‘And what of the scholars coming in after us?’ the roegadyn demanded. ‘These things aren’t attacking now, but what if they do later? We’re supposed to be making this place _safe._ ’

‘I expect they’d flay us alive if we destroyed these things rather than leave them for study,’ Z’kila mused, eyes on his notebook while he considered a way to identify this room apart from all the others while the spherical contraption bleeped at them.

‘And if they decide not to be so friendly when the scholars start poking and prodding at them, what then?’

Z’kila shrugged. ‘I’ll make sure they’re escorted into these rooms, just in case.’

Bells later, he suspected they had swept most of the pathways and rooms multiple times. Discussions with the other groups revealed more talking contraptions, though not all of them spherical, as well as a room that might have acted as a kitchen, though the way the shield-wielding hyur described it made it sound like no kitchen Z’kila had ever seen.

A screaming roar interrupted them from the crystalline platform above and a spout of bright yellow flame turned the blue crystal green.

Silence thrummed through every one of them for a beat before someone said: ‘Dragon.’

Z’kila’s shoulders slumped. ‘Of course it’s a bloody dragon. Why _wouldn’t_ there be a dragon?’

The dragon, a green one, whatever that might mean, turned out to be less of a hassle than the three smaller Phlegathon-like creatures and the waves upon waves of more _people_ that looked identical to Unei and Doga. Z’kila hesitated to attack them at first, but the rest of the party wasted no time engaging. After the horrific abomination of the creature below, this battalion seemed tame in comparison and not one of their number ended the battle physically injured. An unlucky few were subjected to the dragon’s venomous bile and had to be magically cured of it before they could move on.

Someone requested a longer rest, to make camp again, and Z’kila was inclined to agree until the veteran pointed out how exposed they were. The towering stone walls and staircases were absent now, to leave way to the open crystalline outer walls and a floating helix staircase that spiralled upwards to a second crystalline platform high above. Best to push on until they could find somewhere with better cover.

Z’kila rubbed at his eyes and followed the party up _yet more stairs._ If he never saw another step again it would be too soon.

A second guardian awaited them. It was big and terrifying but after the first abomination, its general Spoken-like form in silver plate armour seemed far less of a threat. The proportions were off, but after staring at too many shark heads for an entire battle, this was more of a welcome adversary.

Welcome, perhaps, but far from easy.

The beast of a man had such a thick hide that Z’kila’s blades simply bounced off it. He aimed for the neck, the ribs, the kidneys all without his dagger points so much as puncturing the skin. With a muttered curse under his breath, he flipped from its shoulders to land perched on his toes near the outer edge of the platform. The mages appeared to be having more luck, the barrage of fire and ice cracking and splintering the skin of its back and legs.

Z'kila changed his focus, weaving between the shielding forms of the larger members of the party to strike at the bulging ligaments at the backs of the knees.

The chime of the linkpearl in his ear near deafened him and he missed a step, his focus yanked aside. He caught himself, scowling at the interruption- as the massive fist of the giant man collided with his entire self.

He didn’t feel the contact. But he was not spared the flare of pain down his left side from the tip of his ear down to his toes as he flew across the platform. A rib or two cracked on impact with the crystalline ground and he rolled several fulms towards the edge. The breath forced from his lungs, he couldn’t so much as grunt. The linkpearl chimed insistently, piercing through the roar of blood through his ears.

A wash of healing eased the paralysing extent of the blunt pain and Z’kila choked on the first lungful of air he managed to gasp. A conjurer came to his side, though he couldn’t see who through the blood pouring out of his eyes, and covered him in healing aether that numbed the worst of the pain as ribs snapped back into place and blood vessels closed up.

He lifted one hand to his ear as the aether worked through his broken body, repairing what it could reach. ‘Might I return this call at a slightly more convenient time?’ he spat, blood from a loose tooth spraying the ground before it settled back into its socket.

‘ _Oh, um, of course-!_ ’ came G’raha’s rather fumbling reply before Z’kila disabled the connection. The healing magic repaired what it could and numbed the pain of what it couldn’t, and Z’kila climbed to his feet with an irritated scowl. He would much rather be down on the ground in a tent with G’raha than Twelve knows how many fulms up a blasted tower fighting a monster man with fists the size of boulders.

The battle was a long one. Blades, arrows and lance points barely cut through the creature’s thick hide, and even the aether-based magics struggled to do much more than crust and wrinkle along its edges. The conjurers’ aero spells seemed to be the only effective means of slicing through skin and flesh, opening up the beast for more conventional weapons. Z’kila stuck his blades into lacerations left in the legs and ankles, trying to sever ligaments and tendons or whatever equivalent this creature had.

His injuries were bad. It was becoming apparent that healing magic was the only thing keeping him on his feet, since his legs threatened to collapse from underneath him every time it wore off before being replenished.

Z’kila had his jaw clenched, teeth bared in a snarl with one of his daggers plunging into a gaping wound in the back of a monstrous calf muscle over and over again when someone shouted a warning. He didn’t hear it at first, perhaps willfully, so eager was he to get this staggering beast to its knees. A series of yelps from his comrades, followed by a shriek, finally drew his attention.

‘The floor, the floor!’ screamed a hyuran woman with fists like iron as she skittered back to the edge of the platform.

Z’kila looked down. The crystalline platform glowed with a latticework of bright yellow light just beneath the surface centring on the giant monster man. He was no expert on aether or magic, but he knew _danger_ when he saw it.

Wrenching free his weapons, he bolted for the edge of the platform where a glowing pad launched his comrades to a smaller orbiting platform, free of the underlying aether lines. The launching pad acted like a large, invisible hand throwing him across the awful drop between platforms and he landed with a slight stumble on his toes.

Twenty-three of the party made it off the central platform in time. The last, an elezen archer, disappeared in a blinding column of light. He did not reappear when the light dissipated. Z’kila struggled to swallow, the blinding yellow light overtaking his vision far longer than it lasted, and found himself the last one back into the battle.

It took the rest of them far too long to bring down the beast of a man. A few others sustained minor injuries quickly patched up to the best of the conjurers’ abilities and Z’kila sat down heavily where he stood, unable to push himself further. Covered in a freezing purple ichor as well as his own blood and bruising, he wanted nothing more than for someone to rap him on the back of his head and knock him out cold for a few hours.

‘We must be about halfway up,’ announced the veteran, standing in the middle of the loitering party with his hands on his hips and his eyes cast skywards. ‘If we push on we might be out of here in another day or two.’

‘Aye, we’ll be out of here and back in the lifestream if you keep pushing us past our limits,’ snapped the Hellsguard roegadyn. ‘We should have rested before fighting this thrice-damned thing. Now we’re one man down.’

‘Resting increases our chances of being set upon when our guard’s down!’ the veteran retorted.

‘We weren’t set upon at all last night,’ the lalafellin thaumaturge pointed out.

‘We had better cover last night. It’s too open up here.’

The argument went on. Z’kila’s exhaustion forced his eyes closed and his head to droop, even as the pain crept back into prevalence up his left side. While all the breaks and fractures were mended, the bruising felt equally crippling and he struggled to care enough to pay attention to who was speaking.

‘Then let’s go back down,’ appeared to be the agreed upon conclusion after the veteran threw up his hands in irritable defeat. Z’kila nodded his agreement to whoever might be looking at him but made no move to stand. The roegadyn hauled him up as the party began to move and the Keeper conjurer washed him in healing magic once again for the journey down the steps. Climbing down, at least, was less effort than climbing up.

They made camp in the same place as before, surrounded by the rush of falling water into shallow pools. Z’kila didn’t even attempt to offer to stay up on watch. Assuming he could stave off sleep at all, he was in no state to stay alert enough to keep the rest of the group safe from anything that might creep down from above.

He sat atop his bedroll with his notebook in his lap, quill point poised, with no words coming to his pounding head. He could barely hear the water over the blood in his ears, let alone the approach of a small robed lalafell.

‘You look bloody awful,’ he said without preamble and set about pulling vials filled with a viscous violet liquid from his pack. ‘Apply these topically. They should help those contusions fade and ease the ache. You can reapply if you wake up in the night, but don’t use more than three before morning. Can’t do anything about a headache, though.’

Z’kila grunted in response, eyeing the four vials laid out for him. The lalafell stomped off without waiting for thanks.

The gingerly-applied potion to the left side of his face, neck and chest provided an instant relief. The pain didn’t leave him entirely, but it was dulled to the point of tolerability. But words didn’t come any easier to summarise the day’s findings and battles. Twirling the quill slowly between his fingers, Z’kila lifted a hand to return the linkshell call.

‘ _Are you well?!_ ’ came the reply before the linkpearl could complete even one full chime.

‘Quite,’ replied Z’kila with a quiet, amused huff. ‘We’re just settling down for a rest now. You don’t happen to have the time, do you?’

‘ _I don’t have a chronometer in the tent,_ ’ said G’raha, speaking through a heaving sigh. A rustle of fabric or canvas that may have been the opening of the tent flap. ‘ _But it’s the middle of the night. Early morning at a guess._ ’

No wonder Z’kila had struggled to walk in a straight line, pummelling aside. ‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry.’

‘ _No- no! You said you would return the call and things sounded intense on your side so I was just...waiting._ ’ He cut himself off with a cough. ‘ _I trust it didn’t prove too much to handle. Can I ask what you found or would that break protocol?_ ’ he added with a hint of a jest.

‘Well...we lost one,’ Z’kila replied, lowering his voice with a glance across the party. Some of them had taken the elezen’s loss harder than others, though whether they were close or simply suffered more severe abjection he couldn’t say. G’raha didn’t answer and he hurried to add, ‘All things considered it isn’t the worst outcome. I wouldn’t know the name of it, but it was a giant of a man with the proportions all wrong. Green skin, weird armour.’

Another pause, and then G’raha asked, ‘ _Could you describe the armour to me?_ ’

Z’kila did so to the best of his memory. The strange – downright cumbersome in his opinion – winged helmet with the bulging pauldrons and breastplate that did nothing to protect its abdomen- though, with a hide as tough as that one Z’kila didn’t see much of a need for plate armour at all. He listened to the scratchings of a quill nib on paper down the linkshell and he endeavoured to do the same, repeating his words in written form.

‘ _I don’t know who or what this might be, but I shall look through some records on the morrow to see if I can uncover it,_ ’ said G’raha. ‘ _You lost one, you said? My condolences._ ’

Z’kila shrugged, entirely forgetting that G’raha couldn’t see him. ‘I didn’t really know him. It’s a shame though. He was a good shot.’

‘ _My apologies all the same,_ ’ said G’raha. ‘ _Was this the only resistance you have come across?_ ’

A snort escaped him before he launched into a detailed recount of the expedition so far, flipping back through his notebook to recount some of the finer details. G'raha hung onto his every word, interrupting only to ask for descriptions, probing down to the exact hue of the red dragon's scales. Quills scratched and scribbled on both sides.

'While I have you,' Z'kila went on, 'I found similar symbols to those you noticed on the walls of the labyrinth in here. Two sets in grids, some of them glowing. I made sketches of the glowing glyphs in the off-chance they change of their own accord before you see them for yourself.'

' _Have you seen them since?_ ' G'raha asked, latching onto the change of subject. ' _Might they have changed already?_ '

Z'kila's tail gave an amused little flick before he curled it into his lap. He glanced up at the second grid on the wall by the stairs. 'I am looking at them now and I see no difference. Do you happen to suspect what they might mean yet?'

' _Beyond my theory of musical notes I've made no headway,_ ' G'raha answered, an edge of guilt to his tone. ' _They are arranged in a grid, you say? I'm afraid I don't know what meaning that could signify._ '

'I'm sure it'll come to you in a book or transcript,' Z'kila answered.

A most undignified scoff from G'raha. ' _I very much doubt that, since the Ironworks team has been so focused on the Tower lately that I haven't been able to get my hands on any new transcripts for weeks._ '

'How very dare they avert their attention to anything other than G'raha Tia's precious tomestones?'

' _It pleases me that the vaunted Z'kila Tia agrees._ '

Silence descended on both ends of the linkshell for but a moment before the pair of them snorted behind their hands like naughty schoolboys.

When he spoke again, G'raha's voice took on an undertone of shyness. ' _I don't suppose you are alone right now?_ '

Z'kila's brow furrowed at the question. 'You know where I am, Raha. Of course I'm not-' He looked up to glance across the party and found several pairs of eyes on him. The roegadyn made no attempt to hide her grin and Z'kila realised he was smiling like a sappy twit. He hurried to clear his throat as well as his face. 'G'raha. But no one can hear your side of this conversation, I assure you.'

' _That is a relief._ ' A brief pause, and then quieter he added. ' _Our...conversation, during the watch at the door. Forgive my brazenness, but I would very much like to continue it on your return._ '

Z'kila turned his back on the party, the grinning roegadyn in particular, before the heat in his cheeks could bloom to a crimson blush. Phantom sensations of wandering hands, pliant lips and nipping teeth burst across his skin. 'You _minx,_ ' he hissed, smiling again despite himself.

G'raha's laughter gave him away. ' _Would that be an acceptance?_ '

'It would be, now go away and leave me to rest.'

' _As you wish. I'll simply lie here, alone, wearing absolutely nothing at all-_ '

Z'kila ended the connection before he could embarrass himself listening to G'raha's words any further, though he was sure he could still hear his laughter. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and flopped back onto his bedroll, tossing his notebook and quill aside.

'Someone special?' the roegadyn asked in a taunting, singsong voice. Z'kila turned his back on her, trying to scrub away the smile that had become a permanent fixture in his expression without success. He slept quite soundly.

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Z'kila is stuck inside Syrcus Tower and G'raha stuck outside of it. The pair try to contribute their utmost to the cause in their respective specialties but that doesn't mean they can't afford some private time on the Linkshell together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit language of a sexual nature between two men as well as graphic depictions of masturbation. If that's not your thing, feel free to skip this one! ♥

Of everything in the crystallised landscape of Mor Dhona, G’raha disliked the petrified trees the most. The land wasn’t supposed to be lacking in _green_ to this extent. He wrinkled his nose as he looked at the silvery twist of what was once a living, growing tree trunk. The leaves were all gone, had been for years, most like. But it would do. 

Settling himself at the base of the trunk between two raised, gnarled roots, he sat cross-legged with the biggest tome he owned in his lap and his tail curled around his feet. From here he had an almost entirely unobstructed view of the Crystal Tower, gleaming in all its glory under the midday sun. It still struck him with an odd feeling to know that Z'kila was inside every time it caught his eye; the very epicentre of the Allagan empire, missing for multiple eras, popped up following the Calamity and its doors only opened _three days ago,_ and a living hero had access to its secrets. The _oddness_ of it all culminated from equal parts awe and envy. 

With a short, huffing sigh, G’raha flipped open the leather-bound wooden cover of his tome. It was an old collection of volumes written by various Allagan scholars of different time periods and covered a vast array of subjects. He hoped to find a glimmer of information about either the multi-headed shark thing or the green-skinned giant wearing unnecessary armour before he delved into his collection of tomestone transcripts for specifics. 

If Z’kila was to be the hero of whom multiple tomes and fairytales would be named after in the future, G’raha was happy to be the footnote beneath his adventures. The one to make sense of his discoveries. 

Some of them, at least, he hoped. 

While the volumes covered a broad array of subjects regarding the last royal family of Allag and Crystal Tower, the writing was still dense and interspersed with fragments of incomplete Allagan script. Coupled with the fact he had only Z’kila’s descriptions to go off, he couldn’t be sure if he was missing possible references to the guardians of the tower. His belly full from lunch and the sun blazing overheard, he fought drowsiness on top of his own daydreams to get through the tome. 

G’raha noted down every mention of any individual or creature that had any kind of potential link to what Z’kila had described, no matter how tenuous, with page and line numbers scribbled in the margins of his journal. 

The multi-headed, multi-limbed shark-hound-person was the easiest one to uncover—and with a description like that, it was hardly surprising. It appeared to be a wolf-headed, tentacled sea-monster that appeared only in Allagan myth and – according to this author, at least – had no basis in reality. Whatever Z’kila had encountered in the tower was likely to be a result of bioengineering, though G’raha’s tome didn’t go into the specifics of a real embodiment of the myth. Her name, for this monster was apparently decidedly female, was Scylla. 

He wrote down the name under his description of the creature Z’kila described in large letters and underlined it twice. Brushing the vane of his quill along the edge of his lower lip, G’raha smiled down at his notebook and his tail flicked around to his other side. 

Mention of the other creature of note was more difficult to locate. Anything _giant_ or _green skinned_ could simply be a result of more bioengineering and had little relation to what it was based on. If, indeed, it was based on anything. Though G’raha suspected it would be, if their reports on the Labyrinth’s defences were anything to go by. 

G’raha had his nose deep in the tome, scowling down at the finest of prints that seemed to make mention of an intelligent giant, when his linkpearl chimed. He sat up, one hand flying to his ear to accept the connection. 

‘Is everything alright?’ he asked with the conscious effort to not sound too concerned. 

‘ _I’m bored,_ ’ came the clipped response of Z’kila. 

A frown, and G’raha looked up at the tower looming ahead. ‘Bored?’ he echoed. ‘You’re inside the palace of the royal family of the most advanced civilisation in the star’s history, the first to see it since the fall of said civilisation approximately five thousand years ago, and you’re _bored._ ’ 

Z’kila snorted. ‘ _Well, yes, I sound like the most ungrateful, uncultured swine known to man when you put it that way._ ’ 

‘Just a bit.’

‘ _Listen, the party has decided to take a rest day, since we appear to be halfway up according to these tablets we’ve uncovered and we have plenty of rations left and… some of the group are still recovering from injuries. I’ve been staring at the same glyphs for bells and no way of figuring out what they mean._ ’ 

The teasing note vanished from G’raha’s voice. ‘Are you hurt?’

A hesitation on the other end of the call led to a momentary rise of panic before he convinced himself that nothing could be that bad if he was talking so easily. ‘ _Just a bit bruised,_ ’ Z’kila said. ‘ _I have some potions for it. Others are in a worse state. I’m more bored than I am hurt._ ’ 

‘And you would like me to entertain you?’ 

‘ _If you wouldn’t mind. If memory serves, you were quite eager to entertain me last night. Or this morning, whenever it was._ ’ 

Heat bloomed across his cheeks and G’raha looked down at his book, though there was no one close enough to see him blush. The text blurred to unintelligible squiggles to his eyes. ‘I’m afraid I’m no longer in such a mood,’ he muttered and cleared his throat. ‘I am also outdoors and elbow-deep in Allagan history, so I’m not sure I will be able to provide much in the way of entertainment.’ 

‘ _That is a shame,_ ’ Z’kila answered, the barest hint of a suggestive purr lacing his words. ‘ _Very well. I’ll find my own entertainment. Have you found anything of note?_ ’ A muted rustle and G’raha imagined him climbing to his feet. 

He cleared his throat again. ‘The first guardian I think is a bioengineered creature named Scylla,’ he said, and went on to explain his theory regarding that odd guardian. Z’kila hummed and made other appropriate noises of vague interest as he talked. In the background he heard the tapping of what was probably echoing footsteps. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve yet to make any real headway regarding your green-skinned giant.’ 

‘ _It may be nothing,_ ’ Z’kila pointed out, echoing G’raha’s own private musings. ‘ _Might just be a...guard of some kind._ ’ 

‘It might be,’ G’raha agreed. ‘But based on other guardians we’ve come across so far, I suspect there will be a link to something from either history or myth.’ 

‘ _The Allagans liked their legends._ ’

‘They did indeed.’ 

‘ _A lot like you._ ’

G’raha couldn’t come up with more of an adequate response to that other than a non-committal hum as his face flamed with a mix of embarrassment and pleasure. He fought with the smile trying to creep onto his face as he listened to Z’kila’s harsher breaths, possibly climbing steps. _I like your legends the most,_ he admits in the privacy of his own mind, and then immediately clears his throat and shakes his head, shocked at himself for thinking such a thing. 

‘ _Are you still there?_ ’ 

‘Y-yes! Apologies. Where are you?’ 

‘ _On a staircase. This place is three-quarters staircase, but at least this one is nice to look at. I’d describe it but you’ll see it for yourself soon enough. It’s nicer than the stone staircases down on the lower levels._ ’

G’raha bit his tongue against demanding him to describe his surroundings anyway. The tip of his tail tapped a rapid beat against his knee. ‘You mentioned tablets marking your way. I don’t suppose they hold any other information?’ 

‘ _The tablets themselves? I don’t think so, but I’m not at all literate in Allagan script. Each level is signified by a polygon, and they begin to glow the higher you climb. The first three were all stone architecture with hints of the blue crystal. Up here, almost everything is constructed from crystal._ ’ 

Setting his tome aside, G’raha grabbed his notebook to copy down every scrap of information Z’kila was willing to give. ‘Do you know which level you’re on now? What it might have been used for?’ 

‘ _Somewhere after the fifth,_ ’ Z’kila said. ‘ _I can’t tell you how bored I am of stairs at this point._ ’ 

‘Yes, yes, many stairs, we’ve established that,’ G’raha bit back, impatiently waving his quill about. 

‘ _You’ll be able to see it all for yourself in a matter of days, most like, and anything I could say won’t do it justice, I promise you._ ’ His tapping tail increased to a swishing blur at his side while he bit back an agitated retort. ‘ _I’m also stepping into unchartered waters, so to speak, so best I stay quiet._ ’ 

G’raha’s ears lifted from their lowered stance. ‘I thought you were having a rest day?’

‘ _That was the intention. I’ve drifted from the central staircase so I’m unlikely to stumble across anything deadly._ ’

‘Are you alone?’ 

A brief pause on the other end of the connection allowed for the echoing footsteps to take momentary precedence and G’raha could picture booted feet walking through a crystalline corridor. ‘ _Currently, yes._ ’ A grin shaped those words, their low tone caressing his inner ear. G’raha bit his lip and suppressed a shudder. ‘ _I’m sorry I had to cut off your fun last night. Are you alone and still wearing absolutely nothing at all?_ ’ 

G’raha wanted to curl in on himself. Arms came up over his head as he laughed through a mortified groan. ‘Why would you put that back in my head?’

‘ _Your words, Raha._ ’ 

‘I thought you wanted to be quiet.’

‘ _I am being quiet._ ’ G’raha rolled his eyes at that. ‘ _Let’s see if you can do the same, shall we?_ ’ 

Cheeks aflame at the suggestion, G’raha rubbed both palms across his eyes and shifted to sit on his knees in an effort to relieve the dull, pulsing ache beginning in his groin. ‘As enticing as that is, I’m afraid I’m currently fully dressed and out of doors.’ It was also the middle of the afternoon where any one of the Sons or Ironworks might come looking for him. They weren’t likely to, but it was certainly a possibility. 

‘ _That didn’t stop you before,_ ’ Z’kila pointed out. The words continued to curl around his grin, and the visage of his glinting-eyed expression floated behind his eyelids. ‘ _Or is it less acceptable to have your own trousers around your ankles outside than mine?_ ’ 

G’raha pressed his lips together, painfully tempted. He glanced over his shoulder towards the camp as one hand drifted down to adjust himself in the confines of his smalls, allowing the touch to linger just a moment. ‘And what exactly would I get out of that potentially rather humiliating risk?’ 

A beat of silence had him tensed in anticipation for the response before: ‘ _Pleasure?_ ’ 

Z’kila drew out that single word in a deep, rumbling purr, drawing attention to the lateral sounds shaped around a talented tongue and caressing the fricative vibrations that followed. G’raha had to shake his head to bring the world back the right way up. ‘Would you join me in such a venture, I wonder?’ he asked, already embarrassed by his own breathlessness. 

‘ _I think not on this occasion,_ ’ came the purring, chuckling reply. ‘ _I’m in a rather more perilous place than you are. Besides I’d much rather keep my hands off myself and wait for yours._ ’

G’raha bit his tongue against a groan at that mental image. The memory of Z’kila’s member, flushed, hard and weeping heavy on his tongue. ‘I really think I’d rather do the same…’ 

‘ _Is that so?_ ’ he asked, soft and teasing. ‘ _So you don’t intend to go back to our tent as soon as this conversation ends and touch yourself to thoughts of it?_ ’ 

‘You cannot possibly know what I intend to do,’ G’raha was quick to argue. 

‘ _No, but it’s a decent guess._ ’ Behind his words came the subtle creaking of very old hinges. G’raha desperately wanted to know what he was seeing, where he was exploring, but with a significant amount of blood abandoning his brain he couldn’t focus enough to ask. ‘ _You’ve seen so much of me without returning the favour… It seems only fair that I should get to **hear** you first._’

G’raha rubbed one hand over his mouth to muffle the moan that threatened to escape. Glancing over his shoulder again at the distant camp, he was more or less satisfied that no one was looking or heading his way. The Sons were still monitoring their reports and almost every one of the Ironworks team was watching the door of the Tower. He palmed lightly across his length through the layers of his trousers and smalls, the temptation too much to resist. ‘If I get caught I will place every onze of blame on you,’ he yielded in a rasping whisper.

‘ _Will you punish me?_ ’ And with a subtle flip in intonation Z’kila’s voice turned from rumbling, suggestive to soft and demure. 

'Don't tempt me,' G'raha retorted with a breathless laugh. 

The responding throaty chuckle rattled from one ear straight through his mind to the other. ' _Don't think too hard about it, Raha. Just do as I tell you._ ' G'raha sighed shakily and tried to release the building anxiety with it, leaving just the thrill of what they were doing behind. ' _Are you touching yourself already? Does the pressure of your hand through your clothes take the edge off that intense ache?_ ’

‘Mhm…’ A whimper of an affirmative rather than any real word, but G’raha was not willing to succumb to wanton moaning before he was touching himself bare. 

‘ _Do you tease yourself this way when you’re alone? Or are you just shy for me?_ ’

G’raha bit into the edge of his thumb, grounding himself through the heady dizziness. ‘Both- A little of both, I think.’ He struggled to swallow. ‘I’ve never… done this before. With someone listening.’ 

' _In that case I am honoured to be your first._ ' A brief pause in which G'raha allowed himself a moment to breathe without the onslaught of that low voice deep in his ears. ' _Will you bare yourself for me?_ ' 

A high, breathless laugh. 'Is it baring myself for you if you can't even see what I'm baring?' he challenged even as trembling fingers fumbled for his belt, clattering over unyielding brass and tugging at the leather. 

' _I hope to hear it soon enough._ ' G'raha nearly moaned aloud from the anticipation dripping from that simple statement alone. ‘ _Lower your trousers. Leave them where you can reach them in a hurry, just in case._ ’ A relieved sigh as he followed instructions and released himself from his smalls with a third glance back at the camp. The cool air sent a tingle through his groin. Left to his own devices, he would never do something like this out in the open. But there was something about being told what to do that took some of the responsibility from his shoulders, and something about the shame that added to his arousal. 

‘...Are you going to tell me what to do?’ He aimed to sound teasing, but a tremulous voice struggling to catch a breath sounded simply needy and wanting. 

He could almost hear the grin curling the corners of Z’kila’s lips. ‘ _Would you like me to?_ ’ 

‘...Yes.’ 

‘ _Very well. Close your eyes for me. Trust your ears and focus on my voice._ ’ G’raha spread his legs a fraction further, the rock cool on his rear, and rested his tail at his side with the tip twitching in time with his rapid heartbeat. Resting his head back against the trunk of the crystallised tree, he gazed up at the twist and tangle of leafless branches above before letting his eyelids flutter shut. ‘ _Start at your lips. Touch them. Outline them. Focus on the shape, the sensations._ ’ 

G’raha hesitated. He had expected Z’kila to tell him to take himself in hand immediately—that’s what he would do to himself, at least. But then, when he was alone, he was usually seeking a quick release. Thin, calloused fingers came up to brush lightly over the damp, sensitive skin of his lower lip. He felt quite silly and squirmed in place- until he imagined they were Z’kila’s fingertips on his mouth, Z’kila’s lips under his touch. 

‘ _Touch your chin, follow the edges and curves. The line of your jaw and down your neck. Trace on the column of your throat. Focus on the spots that bring you the most pleasure, linger there._ ’ 

He could see Z’kila’s lips shaping every word, framed by the backdrop of his own conjuration of Syrcus Tower’s interior. Sharp claw points dragged down his pulse line and left fiery sensations in their wake that had his breath catching. But they weren’t his own- they were Z’kila’s. And perhaps it was less the touch that sent the jolts of arousal straight to his member and more the threat of claws somewhere so vulnerable. 

‘ _See? Don’t your own hands feel nice?_ ’ G’raha tried to rebuke that, to explain that it was his imaginings of _him_ that was bringing him pleasure, but all that escaped him was a whimpering gasp. ‘ _Trace down your collarbones. And then I want you to touch your chest, your stomach- but no touching where you want it most. Not yet._ ’ Another whimper that drew a low chuckle from Z’kila. ‘ _Patience, Raha. I promise to be utterly **impatient** with you when I can get my own hands on you._’

‘You’d bloody better,’ G’raha rasped. 

‘ _Have you touched your own inner thighs before, Raha? Have you felt how soft they are, in spite of firm muscles on the outer?_ ’ A catch in breath as he moved to do just that- tracing mindless patterns at varying pressures, slipping between feather-light fingertips and firm stroking with his palm. ‘ _I hope you aren’t touching your cock, Raha. Not yet._ ’ 

‘I’m not,’ he panted out. His member lay hard and weeping on his stomach, flushed a deep, angry red.

‘ _Good. I want you to bask in these sensations first. All of you deserves such attention._ ’ 

One hand under his shirt, fingers splayed to brush as much of his chest and abdomen as he could reach, the other continued ministrations on the inner and undersides of his thighs. Still imagining they were Z’kila’s hands on him, Z’kila’s body under his fingers. Nipples hardened and muscles twitched under delicate tracing, sharp claws an immediate contrast to gentle fingertips. His breath caught and tiny gasps escaped as much as he tried to keep himself quiet. He wasn’t sure if anyone else had given his body this much attention before, much less himself. 

‘ _Now…_ ’ Z’kila whispered, ‘ _take yourself in hand._ ’ 

Again G’raha hesitated. Now that he was here, with his hands on his body and Z’kila’s voice in his ear, he was reluctant to bring it to an end. But the ache was growing unbearable, painful. His hand moved down to pass through the gathering puddle of fluid on his stomach, wetting his fingers with it, before he wrapped them around himself.

A shaky sigh revealed his obedience. ‘ _Very good. Move, but slowly. Indulge in the building tension._ '

Indulge he did- every stroke of himself was as slow as he could tolerate, enough to take off the sharp edge of the ache without sending him skyward. Soft, mewling whimpers escaped his throat. He wanted to make this last an eternity- but craved _more._

'Z'kila…'

' _Tell me what you think about when you're alone._ ' 

He struggled to form a coherent thought, much less string a sentence together. But he tried. 'B-beautiful bodies to share a...a bed with, but nameless...faceless… More recently, just you. Always you.' A pitched breath in his ear that could have been as easily a scoff as a sigh had him smiling through panting breaths. 'Are you touching yourself as well?’

Z’kila laughed, breathless and catching. ‘ _No, but by the Twelve do I want to._ ’ His words conjured the mental image of the usually stoic Warrior of Light coming undone under his own touch. Once again G’raha’s own version of the Tower’s azure interior framed the fantasy and he gave an appreciative moan. ‘ _Do you want to move faster?_ ’ 

‘Y-yes…’

‘ _Then go ahead. Let your body guide you._ ’ G’raha sped his movements, his other hand stroking and grasping at his chest, lightly dragging claws across heated skin. Panting breaths continued unabated, unmuffled and laced with soft, breathy moans. ‘ _Don’t chase your release. Let it come to you._ ’ 

Holding back from speeding up further, to chase his end, took a level of will power G’raha didn’t know he had. The coil tightened in his gut, the heat rising regardless of his slower speed than he would usually find release. He writhed with the intensity of the slow-building pressure, with Z’kila’s whispers of encouragement spoken directly into his mind. 

‘ _Hold onto it. Don’t prevent it, just see how long you can hold onto the feeling._ ’ 

G’raha tried- truly. He managed to linger on the precipice for only a moment. Then his free hand flew up to muffle the cry he couldn’t restrain as pulsing pleasure burst around his groin, spreading in sparks all the way up the back of his skull and down to the very tip of his tail. He lurched onto his side, landing bruisingly on his elbow to spill across the rock rather than his clothes. 

In the pleasant glow of lingering pleasure afterwards, his entire being felt comfortingly warm in a way that had little to do with the thin sheen of sweat forming across his skin and dampening his hair. ‘Are you still there?’ he murmured, breathless and utterly satisfied. 

‘ _Of course,_ ’ came Z’kila’s strained reply. ‘ _That was quite the treat for me, I must say._ ’ 

‘For _you?_ ’ G’raha repeated with a snort. ‘Why do you ever bother looking for a bedmate if you can do that for yourself every time?’ 

Z’kila laughed. ‘ _You think I talk to myself doing something like that? That was for you._ ’ 

Cheeks warming, G’raha set about pulling his clothes back into their proper places. He couldn’t stop grinning. ‘I don’t suppose I can talk you into a return of the favour?’ 

‘ _That was a return of a favour, Raha. For the night at the door._ ’ 

‘But…’ He looked back at the camp, his face likely matching his hair. He didn’t want to say farewell yet but couldn’t bring himself to say it. ‘Fine. I’ll make you pay for it when you get out of there.’ 

‘ _I thought you’d rather get in here as soon as I’m out of it?_ ’ he teased, and it was the worst dilemma of a choice G’raha had ever been faced with. Z’kila chuckled when he stumbled over a coherent answer and saved him from answering. ‘ _Go and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll see you in a day or two._ ’ 

G’raha’s mouth threatened to form a pout. He tried to speak, to ask if they could speak for just a moment more, but ultimately the words wouldn’t come. Z’kila was probably busy, regardless of whether it was a recuperation day or not. ‘All right. Rest up and stay safe.’ 

‘ _I’ll do my best._ ’ 

The silence was deafening following the click of the connection ending. G’raha sighed and let his head thump back against the petrified tree trunk. 

*

Z’kila let his hand drop down from his ear and pressed his flushed forehead press against the cool crystal of the wall. The circular room he had found himself in was empty, much like all the others they had discovered, but there was more gold gilding around the walls than any so far and intricate floor tiling that made up a cosmic pattern. The grandeur of it was somewhat lost on the lovely sounds still echoing in his mind and the fantasies they’d brought about. 

He heaved a great breath and squashed down the arousal broiling at the surface. He could deal with that later. Namely when he wasn't in a clone-infested Allagan tower. For now he forced his focus back onto one of the two other doors in the room, standing opposite each other, that he had been trying to pry open during his and Raha's _conversation,_ with no success. Perhaps he could bring the party back here tomorrow and discuss whether it was worth trying to open at all. There were four golden alcoves which could also conceivably be doors, but those proved no easier to open. Assuming there was anything behind them at all. 

The only other curiosity in the room was a pane of crystal shaped like a window or mirror perched on a platform at the head of the room- if a circular room could be said to have a head. But it revealed nothing except for the same azure shades as the Tower’s exterior, no matter whether he pressed his face against it or stood as many paces away as the room allowed. 

With another huffing sigh, Z’kila turned his back and made to return to the party. Such mysteries were for the scholars to puzzle over, not him. Perhaps G’raha would have some fun decoding the place before they had to seal it off.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Z'kila has two more adversaries to overcome. Trapped in the Tower for several days now, his job is nearly at its end. _Should_ be at its end. He can push through fatigue and overwhelming feelings of futility if he holds onto that one thought. Can't he?

Unlike the geometric stone staircases of the lower floors, the spiralling helix of the azure staircase at these higher levels seemed to float entirely of their own accord. The only beams in sight were those of the sun filtering down through the thinner upper layers of crystal, even after several bells of examination and analysis of the structure. While none of the company were surveyors or architects of any kind, the lalafellin thaumaturge seemed to think there was some support apart from magic. 

They found nothing conclusive and the veteran was positively bouncing on his toes with impatience. Z’kila was just grateful they were able to tell whether it was day or night now. 

A red carpeted staircase led them up into a circular hall that could only be described as a theatre. Red velvet draped the gold-gilded crystalline walls, framing empty viewing boxes all pointed towards the curtained stage ahead of them. They were high up in the tower now. Z’kila could feel the air thinning, gasping simply from the climb and struggling to muster the energy for another battle. There, standing in front of the stage and quite evidently waiting for them, stood a much too tall man in the most flamboyant garb Z’kila had ever seen. 

The brim of his hat was so wide it was a wonder he could see a thing, its adorning feather almost as tall as Z’kila. A vibrant violet coat was shrouded in a translucent cape lined with luminous glass fibre of the same colours as the Tower. Allagan royalty was very fond of this particular shade of blue, and Z’kila wouldn’t mind never seeing it again. There was no weapon visible in his grasp.

‘Do you think all Allagans were this big or is this just some technological...thing?’ he asked, gesturing vaguely at the tall, thin giant eyeing them from behind a blank mask before deciding that talking was a waste of valuable oxygen. 

The dragoon veteran offered a sluggish shrug in reply and jerked his chin up the staircase beyond their apparent host. ‘I neither know nor care, but I think we’re about to meet the Emperor.’ 

Z’kila turned his eyes to the stop of the final— _final_ —red carpeted staircase, where the pale, pastel oranges and pinks of sunset shone through an open doorway to reveal the sky. Even as thin as the air up here was, he breathed a little easier. There was just the obstacle of this masked man to barrel through first- and if memory served correct of G’raha’s musings on the Tower and Allag, his name was Amon. 

‘Well then,’ Z’kila said with a shallow sigh, pulling his daggers from his belt. ‘Formations, let’s go.’ 

‘ **My, my, such unruly guests.** ’ Amon’s voice boomed and hands flew up to press over ears as the unexpected rattling somehow pierced eardrums without being particularly loud, ‘ **’Twould seem a little diversion is in order.** ’ 

An arm extended towards them, palm outwards, and even oxygen deprived the party had the wherewithal to scatter. A bead of bright red light made contact with the carpet and exploded in a great ball of vermillion flames. No one screamed- no one had the breath to scream, even as hands slapped over singed robes, capes and coats. Z’kila rolled back onto his feet, adjusting his grip on his daggers. _Almost there,_ he reassured himself, glancing up at the beautifully orange sky through the doorway above. _Almost done._

Those wielding shields and coated in plate did what they could to protect those of the party less protected, but shields and armour could do little against magic. Fire- and ice-aspected aether filled the thin air in abundance, burning nostrils and prickling skin. Retaliating spells seems to slide right off the luminous floating cape. 

That cape seemed to have something of a hypnotic quality. With Amon’s every flourish and turn, the glowing lining flashed and blurred in Z’kila’s vision. His blades caught and tore through fabric, making no contact with his body. As much as he stabbed and slashed at the layers of frills, he could land no substantial hit. 

Panting shallowly and struggling to string a coherent thought together in his light-headed brain, Z’kila backed off towards the edge of the hall. He allowed himself a moment, watching the battle- if it could be called that. The party staggered around the looming figure of Amon, throwing weapons and spells around while he simply twirled about dodging it all with such ease that it appeared as a choreographed performance. He would exhaust the whole lot of them before they could so much as stagger him. 

Reaching out for the surrounding aether, and the very core of the Tower’s crystal foundations was abundant with it, Z’kila shaped it with the ritual hand signs of _heaven, earth_ and _man._ He pulled at the air and a cascading waterfall fell atop Amon’s ridiculous feathered hat. 

It provided both a distraction and staggered the giant’s light steps long enough for a few lances and swords to cut through those endless layers of fabric and luminescence to reach the vulnerable body beneath. The mages, meanwhile, continued to struggle; there was something about that floating cape that seemed to catch and disperse magic. Z’kila pushed through the exhaustion, the lack of air, and leapt back into the fray. 

One dagger tore through the cape, the coat and the layers beneath to sink into the flesh of Amon’s lower back. Anchored in, Z’kila momentarily started at the complete lack of blood that flowed from the wound before he stabbed into Amon with his second dagger. The giant barely flinched, barely made any indication that he even acknowledged the stabbing, or the slashing blades at his legs. 

Setting his feet on Amon’s back, Z’kila twisted his daggers with a snarl about his mouth before throwing himself off that unnaturally tall body in a backflip that wrenched both blades free. Landing on one knee, he allowed himself just a fraction of a moment to catch his breath, eyeing his daggers. No blood- just the glimmer of dissipating aether. 

What _were_ these things?

Perhaps it was for the best that he didn’t know. 

‘ **That will do for the opening act. Let the curtains rise for the main attraction!** ’ A wide flourishing spread of long arms as the party flinched under the booming voice that seemed to mess with the very foundations of their aether. Z’kila pushed through the rattling pain of it, through the dearth of breathable air to land a strike to the backs of Amon’s knees, just to have his target dance out of his path. 

He turned, snarling- and leapt back with a muted yelp. A massive red frog stared at him with wide, blank eyes. Its rubbery chest expanded and retracted with a croaking _ribbit,_ but it didn’t seem to want to harm him. Huge cobras slithering down from the viewing boxes in the walls, on the other hand, forked tongues as long as the veteran’s lance flicking out from great fanged mouths, looked distinctly less friendly. As did the cloaked creatures with their faces hidden in the unnaturally deep shadow of their hoods. 

‘ _Amalia?!_ ’ cried a voice from the other side of the hall, the mage staring wide eyed and slack jawed at another identical giant frog that took the place of her sister. 

‘Refocus!’ the veteran roared over the rising panic with impressive volume. ‘Take them down and be quick about it!’ 

Z’kila left his frog alone, turning his attention instead to the mass of serpent slithering across the hall, its hood flaring and fangs flashing. The mages turned their spells on these more fallible foes, but even as ice formed along scales and the following fire cracked them right off the beast’s body, the serpents continued straight for the frogs. The roegadyn axe-wielder spun her weapon about to catch both one of the shadowy figures and a cobra’s tail in a spin, slicing the tip straight off. 

Once again, there was no blood. Just the sparkling lights of aether pouring from the wound in its place. 

The cobra hissed, the loudest whisper of sound that pierced straight through eardrums. Its jaw opened to reveal fangs as long as Z’kila’s daggers as the beast reared its head up to loom over their heads. 

With a panicked _ribbit!_ one of the red frogs hopped away an instant before the huge cobra struck, fangs sinking into the floor. Darting for the snake, Z’kila pulled at the abundant aether again with a single hand sign that conjured a shuriken, a spinning razorblade that joined both axe and lance in taking it down. The hyur stabbed through the top of its head as the roegadyn chopped it clean in half. Z’kila’s shuriken sliced off a sizable chunk of flesh from its upper half, just to make sure it was dead, before dissipating back into fragmented aether. 

The snakes the party could make quick work of and the frogs transfigured back into squatting, confused comrades but entirely unharmed. The hooded creatures, on the other hand, were less tangible than even Amon. Mist and shadows parted and swirled to let blades pass through them while staffs struck them with a darkness that crept up limbs like blackened ivy. 

Levin crackled through the shades and outlined an intangible silhouette. Where blades and spearheads and arrows could do nothing to these hooded, shadowy creatures, magic seemed to be able to make something of a dent. A glance over Z’kila’s shoulder revealed the former sultansworn struggling to keep Amon’s attention while avoiding the storm of fire raining down on him. 

Another combination of Doman hand signs added Z’kila’s own conjured lightning to aid the mages’ efforts with one of the shades. ‘Focus on the giant,’ he snapped to the veteran. ‘Mages take these things down.’ 

The dragoon barked the instructions to the rest of the party as Z’kila warped across the hundred fulms or so to Amon in the blink of an eye, thrusting both daggers into the back of a knee. Anchoring himself with one, he stabbed and slashed with the other over and over again, gasping for his breath and tearing through cloth and flesh alike for something, _anything_ more than the glimmering of dissipated aether. A stumble beneath him and Z’kila leapt free, an arrow striking the gaping bloodless wound where bone, tendon and ligament should all be on display. 

Dispatching the shades was slow work but the mages seemed to be wearing down their incorporeal forms with elemental magics. Everyone else gathered around Amon thrusting lances, shooting arrows, slashing swords, swinging axes. Z’kila for his part locked his eyes onto that _damn cape_ and leapt for it. 

He cut through the strange glowing material with both daggers, the scraps that came away atomising in his hands. As Amon continued to twirl and dodge with the ease and grace of a practised dance while continuing to seem unaffected by the wounds cut into his aetheric form, his steps grew heavier, as though gravity was beginning to wrap its unrelenting fingers around his form and tug. 

Then he stopped quite suddenly. Standing solidly in the middle of the room, he pressed both palms together and summoned a rain of ice. 

The party attempted to scatter, arms held above their heads, but there was nowhere to go. Chunks no larger than pebbles struck some across skulls and shoulders, eliciting pained cries, but it was the larger pieces that knocked others prone, some of them unconscious. And that was before ice in chunks the size of boulders came down. 

Struck on the back of the head, Z’kila was among those knocked onto his front while ice continued to rain down on them. Blunt pain exploded across the back of his skull and while he couldn’t recall falling he found himself with a face full of red carpet that burned and grazed his cheek. His vision swam and blurred as he struggled back to his feet, crawling on hands and knees as the ground tipped and tilted beneath him. 

Someone shouted, a shrill and panicked note, though he couldn’t comprehend who it was or what they said. 

A large hand wrapped around his upper arm and dragged him up, half carrying him to the edge of the hall where a boulder of ice wobbled by the waving staircase. Wet warmth trickled down the back of his neck. 

Dropped behind the boulder with several others of the group all crouched as though waiting for an earthquake to pass, Z’kila’s vision began to clear as a sharp ache began in his head. A roar that rattled the teeth in his jaw had the lot of them curling in on themselves as a veritable tsunami of flame crashed down around them, overhead and either side of the ice boulder. The sheer heat cracked the ice protecting them from instant incineration, alighted the blood in Z’kila’s veins and robbed them of what little air they had.

A cacophony of coughing and spluttering filled the following void. Snatching at too little air, Z’kila stared wide eyed down at the limp and pale forearm stretched out from beneath the ice.   
  
The survivors forced themselves back to their feet, snarls of pain and anger about their faces. 

‘ **Inconceivable…** ’ 

Stronger men and women than Z’kila jumped back into the fray with their weapons raised. Z’kila himself pulled at the aether, its concentrations rising by the moment, and with one final hand sign conjured another shuriken to tear off the rest of that infernal cape. Returning to retrieve his dropped daggers, he lifted one hand to the back of his head and winced at the thick, sticky liquid matting his hair. 

Amon dropped to his knees in Z’kila’s periphery. Bloodied hands reached for dropped daggers and he reached for that final reserve of strength. Fingers clenched around hilts. One heel dug into the carpet and propelled him back into the fight, teeth bared and blades at the ready to sink into aether-infused flesh. 

‘ **Beware, Your Majesty…** ’ A stab to his back, his hip, under a rib as he climbed higher. Amon’s foundations began to quake. ‘ **...Danger approaches…** ’

The giant of a man toppled forwards and Z’kila let himself fall with him, the great Allagan genius dissipating into glowing, tangible aether before he hit the ground. Z’kila landed splayed on his back, utterly exhausted and panting fast, shallow. 

At length he sat up and watched the rest of the party gather in a kind of stunned silence. A headcount revealed that they were down by four including a healer. Some collapsed in heaps on the floor while the remaining conjurers hurried as best they were able to push themselves to fix burns, lacerations, broken limbs and cracked skulls. Z’kila breathed easier as the pain eased in his head and across his skin though the air was still thin. 

‘We need to push on,’ said the dragoon, the only one of them still standing as he paced beside the foot of the staircase. ‘The summit is _there._ We can see it. Push forward now and we can all go home.’ 

His words were met with silence. His brow creased into a scowl but the axe-wielder interrupted his next words: ‘We need rest,’ she snapped. ‘Can you not see? If we challenge the emperor now we are bound to fail.’ 

‘We might not be given much choice,’ the veteran ground out. ‘You heard the brute give that warning.’ Z’kila snorted softly to himself imagining the look of outrage on G’raha’s face to hear Amon, the genius of Allag, labelled a mere _brute._ ‘He expects us now. We’ve lost any element of surprise we may have had but we are far better going to him than we are waiting for him to come to us.’ 

‘We lost the element of surprise the moment the front doors opened,’ Z’kila pointed out. ‘He’ll wait for us to come to him regardless.’ 

‘His bodyguard is down. He won’t underestimate us now.’ 

‘His adviser.’ 

‘He’ll—what?’

‘That was Amon, Emperor Xande’s adviser. Not a bodyguard,’ Z’kila corrected. ‘We have him to thank for this entire mess in the first place.’ 

‘…Okay. Whatever, point stands.’ The veteran loomed over them all with hands clenched into fists, glare darting between tired eyes. ‘We can go now or we can wait for him to gather his strength further. Your choice.’ 

Further silence followed his words until one of the mages climbed to his feet, using his staff as a crutch. ‘We’re down by five now. We couldn’t defeat this Amon without losing some. What, exactly, are our chances with the Emperor himself?’

‘You would sooner abandon the venture than take a risk?’ the veteran demanded, positively shaking with rage at the very idea. ‘What kind of adventurer are you?’ 

‘A pragmatic one!’ the mage retorted. ‘The odds are most certainly not in our favour anymore. I would sooner take the loot we have found and my life and leave it at that.’ 

The veteran’s eyes started to bulge behind his helm as he spluttered over a response. Z’kila abandoned his quest to claw the dried blood out of his hair and stood up. ‘Then go,’ he said. ‘I won’t force anyone into this final encounter. Take your findings and go.’ 

A brief hesitation before the veteran said, ‘We can’t leave the adventure incomplete.’ 

‘No,’ Z’kila agreed. ‘I have a job to do beyond collecting loot and tomestones and I plan to see it through. Anyone that wishes to can join me, though I can understand the trepidation. Follow me or go home. I don’t care which.’ Steeling himself, Z’kila headed for the staircase leading up to the doorway and the orange sky above, fading to pastel reds and pinks. Slowly he climbed, preserving his energy. Refused to look back to see if he would take on the Emperor on his own. 

At the very precipice he looked out over a massive throne constructed from the tower itself before an assembly platform. The red carpet gave way to an azure stone pathway surrounded on both sides by pools of crystal clear water rushing to the edges to cascade down, down into the tower. Where it was coming from Z’kila couldn’t tell; conjured from the very crystal itself perhaps. That wasn’t for him to discover. He was here to take down the menace slouching atop the throne. 

Emperor Xande was a figure quite unlike the one Z’kila had conjured in his imagination. He had expected a man similar to Amon, covered in fine (if odd) clothes and exuding eccentricity. Instead he found a giant of a man with muscles on top of muscles straining beneath dusky skin, white swirling lines curling around his eyes and spreading down the length of his exposed torso. At this distance it was difficult to tell whether they were a part of him or merely decorative. Xande returned his gaze with blank, white eyes; well aware of his presence and in no haste to beckon him into battle. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he wished he could draw; G’raha would have given anything to see an Allagan emperor in the flesh. 

Footfalls behind him revealed that he wasn’t alone. ‘I can’t promise your survival,’ he warned, thinking it only fair. The Echo extended only so far. 

‘Abandoning an adventure before its conclusion makes for a poor adventurer indeed,’ said the dragoon veteran, visor down and lance in hand. 

‘Indeed,’ agreed the roegadyn lady, axe resting on one shoulder. ‘Besides, how many will ever be able to say they’ve met and defeated Allagan royalty?’ 

‘Resurrected Allagan royalty at that,’ the Keeper conjurer pointed out, bounding up to Z’kila’s side. 

‘Shall we just get on with it?’ asked the lalafell with a sigh, stomping past the lot of them down the path to the assembly platform. 

Z’kila glanced over his shoulder. Just the five of them then. Doable…perhaps. The rush of water and the setting sun created for a juxtaposing peaceful ambiance with the tense atmosphere. Each breath seemed to come easier in spite of the sheer altitude. He pulled his daggers from his belt and followed the thaumaturge, unnerved by the emperor’s ease and evident lack of concern. 

‘ **You fight valiantly, mortals, but to no avail.** ’ 

They staggered. Like Amon, Xande rattled the very foundations of the surrounding aether when he spoke, even that of Z’kila and his four companions. They clutched at their heads, hearts stuttering and skipping before beginning a sparrow’s-wing beat. Xande vanished from his throne and reappeared in the centre of the assembly platform, a staff that seemed to have a sentience of its own at his side. 

‘ **Absolute darkness draws nigh. Soon it will be unleashed, and all shall return to nothingness!** ’ 

Even through the rattling of aether Xande’s words gave Z’kila pause. That was not what he had been told to be the emperor’s goal. He had wanted world domination—not annihilation. 

‘Push through it!’ the roegadyn growled, her eyes alight with an inner rage that could never be matched. Knuckles pale around her axe, she charged at the emperor and swung with her entire strength and weight. Without a word the dragoon followed suit, leaping into the air the way only Ishgardian dragoons could before he came down lance point first towards the top of Xande’s head. 

He teleported out of reach before either of them could land the attack, appearing just a handful of fulms to the left. Z’kila snorted. Two could play at that game. 

Pulling at the trembling aether alongside the thaumaturge, Z’kila summoned a cascading waterfall of his own to drench the emperor just as the lalafell brought down a giant icicle atop his head. The ice shattered on impact; the water frosted around his edges. Z’kila warped close to his ankles and leapt up to sink both daggers into the back of his neck, tough and thick with corded muscle. Much like Amon, Xande barely acknowledged the attack that would have felled a gigas. But it was enough of a distraction for the marauder and dragoon to thrust the business ends of their weapons into his body. If it could be called a body. 

For all its inconvenience, the lack of blood at least left Z’kila mostly clean and the ground dry save for droplets of perspiration. For his part Xande swapped between casting spells of pure astral aether towards the roegadyn, who commanded most of his attention, and simply swiping at them all with his staff. Z’kila hopped and ducked with ease, his Echo warning him of each attack before it happened and while he tried to call them out and warn his comrades they were reliant on their own reactions. 

But they appeared to be winning. Or at least they weren’t losing. No one was dead yet, as the conjurer did her damnedest to keep them all alive and moving, her healing magic helping wounds to remain closed in spite of the physical exertion and chasing off the looming danger of fatigue. Her cutting winds and summoning of stone between healing spells didn’t go amiss either. 

The marauder beckoned Z’kila to her with a jerk of her head and he darted over, hopping onto the head of her axe as she set it on the ground. Without word or difficulty, she launched him right for Xande’s head. 

And he disappeared.

Z’kila flailed, his landing point gone, and a missed foot on the ground sent him rolling into the water. Clinging to his daggers, he hauled himself back onto the platform in time to watch the emperor reappear in his throne through a fringe of dripping hair, slouched and lazy like he had better things to be doing. _Now what?_ he wondered with a scowl. He couldn’t get up to the throne, so high up as it was. 

‘What is _this?_ ’ the roegadyn asked, prodding a circle of glowing glyphs that danced just above the ground with the toe of her boot.

‘ **Mine is the power of darkness! Even the stars must bend to my will!** ’ 

A strange moment of stillness followed while the five of them covered their ears and tried to make sense of the emperor’s plan and what the glyph circle might entail. 

‘Look up!’ cried the conjurer.

Looking skyward, Z’kila watched the plummeting silhouette of a meteor. He froze for a moment, reminded of the dreadful day Dalamud finally made its descent. The screams of his tribe echoed in his ears and the blazing heat crackled across his skin, phantom sensations that nevertheless made him flinch.

‘It’s this thing!’ roared the marauder as she brought her axe down through the glyphs. They danced out its way with nary an impact and the ground itself didn’t so much as shake. ‘Destroy it!’

Shaken from the confines of his mind, Z’kila tried to help- but his daggers did nothing to the glyphs, the blades merely blunting on the stone ground beneath them. Fire, ice, wind and rock burst from the ground all at once as the mages made their mark and knocked both Z’kila and the roegadyn back from the circle. Lights danced behind his eyes as he gathered his bearings. The glyphs sparked and died and a great explosion from above sent all of them to the ground with their arms over their heads. Eardrums ached and fragments of red hot rock rained down upon them. 

Bruised and burnt but otherwise alive, along with the rest of Mor Dhona, the five of them scrambled to their feet as the emperor teleported back to the centre of the platform. ‘ **I shall crush all who dare oppose me!** ’ he roared, the aetheric rattling along with sheer volume sending them staggering once again. Z’kila shook out his ears, lip curling to show his teeth. He may well be entirely deaf by the end of this nonsense. 

Xande responded to their insolence by summoning a great quake, warning them only with the raising of his staff as cracks appeared in the ground. Z’kila along with the dragoon leapt up and away, perched on Xande himself with weapons sinking into aetheric flesh. The conjurer summoned a wind that lifted both she and the lalafell off the ground for the necessary moment to escape the quake, a terrible shaking that was no doubt merely an echo of the one that sparked the fourth umbral calamity and yet strong enough to crack bone. 

And it did. Not agile enough to bound out of reach of the quaking tower and lacking the magical prowess to avoid it, the marauder collapsed with scream that could have shaken the realm all on its own. Z’kila spared her a glance before flipping out of reach of Xande’s grabbing hands. He didn’t want to consider how many fractures she might have sustained in her feet and shins. 

The conjurer wrapped her up in a blanket of healing magic that would ease the pain but do little else in the heat of battle. They would have to continue without her. 

Small as he was, the lalafellin thaumaturge took the emperor’s attention in her place. The bounding agility of Z’kila and the dragoon helped some in providing enough distraction for him to cast his spells, surrounding them in fire before sandwiching them in ice that rained from above and spiked up through the ground. A spike of pure astral aether struck Z’kila through the chest and he couldn’t even scream for the paralysing pain until the conjurer came to his aid, a cascade of healing magic easing the worst of it. 

Fire, ice, wind and rock; a summoned waterfall followed by a lightning strike; an explosive strike of a dragoon’s lance all at once finally drew out too much aether for Xande to keep up the fight. He staggered even as the leaking aether rose glimmering around his giant form. ‘ **My defeat…means nothing…** ’ he growled, falling heavily to his knees. He glared at Z’kila with blank, pupil-less eyes. His lips twisted into a grimacing snarl. ‘ **Darkness…shall devour all…** ’ 

Emperor Xande toppled forwards, atomising before he could hit the stone ground. 

‘…Well that was rather ominous,’ said the veteran, pushing up his visor as he came to stand at Z’kila’s side. 

‘Empty threats or delusion I should think,’ Z’kila answered idly. The awoken emperor was convinced his empire could still conquer the star, after all, five thousand years after its downfall. Or so Z’kila hoped, though his mind was elsewhere. He turned to the Keeper conjurer, grasped her by the shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead. ‘Thank the _Twelve_ for you,’ he muttered, ready to pass out unconscious for several days. She turned a pretty shade of pink and spared him a smile before running to the roegadyn’s side. 

Z’kila took as much of a deep breath as the thin air would allow, practically able to taste the abundance of aether. His body felt both leaden and feather light. His shoulders slumped with the relief of the trial being over, of being able to go back to a feather bed in the Rising Stones or the relative privacy of his tent among the Sons. It was _done._

‘My thanks,’ he said to the dragoon. ‘For staying. Go and get some rest, sell your loot, whatever you like.’ 

‘…You’re not coming?’

Z’kila grimaced. ‘I’m not done yet.’ The Ironworks and the Sons, not to mention G’raha, would all want an initial look at the Tower before they would even consider looking for a way to seal it. At least he could tune out and find somewhere to sit down while they did. Lifting a hand to his ear, he called on G’raha’s linkshell. 

‘ _Z’kila?_ ’ 

‘The view’s nice from up here,’ he said, teasing. ‘Would you like to invite Cid and Rammbroes to come up and have a look?’ 

The slam of what sounded like a remarkably heavy tome answered his words followed by the rustle of clothing. ‘ _On my way,_ ’ G’raha said before the connection broke. Z’kila snorted his own quiet amusement and watched the four that had stayed to help him see this venture through begin the slow descent. The marauder had been patched up enough to walk on her own two feet but would need some serious healing once she returned to Revenant’s Toll. He wandered to the edge of the platform and looked out over the landscape to have a proper look at the view. 

From here he could see the exact reaches of Mor Dhona’s crystallisation. It simply…stopped to give way to the Black Shroud’s lush green canopies. Like a splotch of unruly silver paint on an otherwise pristine painting. 

A slight shift in the ambient aether caught his attention. His ears pinned and he dreaded to look round, to that obnoxiously massive throne of crystal. _Oh, what now?_

A rift in the air leaking umbral aether so concentrated it burned in his nostrils, a tear in the seams of the star was what it was. Z’kila’s heart gave a weak little twinge of protest at the sight, too exhausted from days of battle with uncanny and horrific creatures to do much more than that. 

The emperor’s threat hadn’t been empty at all. 

  
Bells later Z’kila sat on the bank of Lake Silvertear with the chilly water up over his lap, small waves coming to lick at his navel. G’raha sat with him, equally naked and vulnerable with both of his hands on one of Z’kila’s, gently rubbing away sweat and grime and blood and ichor from the creases and cracks of his skin. Yet Z’kila was only half aware of his presence, of his touch. 

His mind had new images, echoes and phantom sensations to torture him with now. The final expression on the elezen’s face before the platform erupted and left not even ash behind. The blaze of intolerable heat that cracked open his skin and set his blood alight. A limp, pale arm poking out from beneath a boulder of ice. Blood hot and sticky on the back of his neck, ethereal voices that made the very aether vibrate, endless pathways with no clear pattern or direction, the constant, _constant_ thrumming that held no audible sound, the screams. 

So many screams. 

‘Z’kila?’ 

He gave a small start and blinked up at G’raha’s worried expression. Glinting starlight from the water’s surface reflected in wide mismatched eyes. ‘…Sorry. What were you saying?’ 

‘Nothing,’ G’raha said. ‘Would it be alright if I washed your back?’ 

Z’kila hesitated before nodding. As loathe as he was to ask for help in the simple matter of washing himself, he lacked any energy to do so even as his skin crawled with grime and memory alike. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he embraced them and rested his chin on his arms as his companion shuffled to sit behind him. 

‘…We’ll get them back,’ said G’raha after a moment, pressing a bar of soap between his shoulder blades and rubbing in slow, solid circles. ‘Unei and Doga and Nero. We’ll get them back from…whatever that was.’

‘We must,’ Z’kila pointed out, voice hollow. ‘We need them to annul the annihilistic covenant Emperor Xande made with the Void before the same fate befalls this star.’ Truth be told, he was less concerned for the welfare of the two Allagan clones that had turned up just a few days prior and Cid’s Garlean rival than he was for the sacrifices that would undoubtedly have to be made to reach them. Supposing he could even find the manpower to do it. _Want to come on an adventure into a world of literal nothingness with me?_ It didn’t exactly sound inviting. Or even exciting. 

In addition to all of that, however, Xande’s words haunted him. If man has nothing, he need not know the pain of loss…

The worst part of it was that Z’kila could…somewhat agree. 

Not that he would let the entire star be subjected to ruin because of one mad resurrected and awoken emperor’s fear of death, of course. 

G’raha’s hands on him soothed the aches and pains that began to take hold now that he was without the energising and numbing effects of healing magic. His head continued to pound and his chest twinged in intermittent pulses from the astral aetheric strike. Whatever damage it had done, his heart certainly didn’t like it. ‘What’s Rammbroes’ plan now?’ he asked in a mumble to keep his thoughts from straying. 

‘The Ironworks and the Sons are looking into a way to reopen the portal to the World of Darkness,’ G’raha explained, his voice carefully cheerful. ‘But who knows how long that might take. You should have plenty of time to rest in the meantime.’ He paused and then added in a rush, as though he just couldn’t help himself, ‘Syrcus Tower will obviously have to remain open in the meantime so we can explore it a little.’ 

His excitement in the wake of such a blow brought a small, reluctant smile to Z’kila’s face as he looked out towards the entangled corpses of Midgardsormr and the _Agrius_. ‘It would be a shame to waste the opportunity,’ he agreed, though privately wished to never see another staircase again as long as he lived. 

G’raha poured cold water over his shoulders to rid his skin of lathered suds and with them went some of Z’kila’s tension. The leaden dread eased some and he found he could help wash the rest of his grimy body while G’raha did what he could to clean his hair of the dried blood. Though he remained exhausted, with every speck of sweat and blood washed from his skin he felt as though he took another step back towards the realm of the living. 

A light tracing down his left arm had him glancing back at G’raha. 

‘How did this happen?’ he asked, eyes and fingers on the stark white lightning scar, root-like on olive skin. ‘This wasn’t here before.’ 

‘Remember all my scars, do you?’ Z’kila found he had the energy to tease.

‘You gave me the opportunity to,’ G’raha shot back with a lopsided grin of his own, eyes darting up to meet a steely gaze before returning to the lines of scarring. ‘It looks almost intentional.’ 

‘One of my prettier scars,’ said Z’kila, glancing down at it himself. Ramuh’s levin strike had been one of the stranger pains he had ever experienced. For a good bell after that particular battle he had no idea he was even hurt, a numb sort of tingling the only sensation on his left side, until he tried to rid himself of his leathers and took off an entire layer of skin from his arm with them. _Then_ the pain had set in, a burning unlike anything flame could do that had sent him begging for help from Alphinaud. Y’shtola had been closer but all seven hells would have to freeze over before he would resort to begging in front of her in nothing but his smalls. 

G’raha’s brow raised as Z’kila told him—albeit with a far more cool and casual air than the reality had been. ‘I should very much like to see one of these primals one day,’ he admitted, reluctantly returning his attention to Z’kila’s hair. 

Z’kila snorted. ‘Believe me, you shouldn’t. No sight in the world is worth being tempered.’ 

A hum behind him but G’raha didn’t sound convinced. 

As clean as he was going to get, Z’kila stood from the water and shook out his hair. ‘I need a drink.’ 

‘You don’t want to sleep?’ 

He barked a short, harsh laugh. ‘I do not. Come with me?’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel obliged to warn you, dear reader, that the upcoming chapter will be almost entirely smut.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, while struggling in the aftermath of the battles that occurred within the Crystal Tower and coming to terms with the fact that his part to play is not yet over, Z'kila finds himself needing a distraction in the form of G'raha Tia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, this chapter is nearly entirely smut! It includes explicit content between two men so if that isn't your thing I recommend giving this one a miss ♥

There was something about the enclosed, crowded and noisy space of the Seventh Heaven of an evening that usually brought some semblance of mindlessness that eased the ale’s destructive path to drunkenness, but this night the press of bodies was nothing short of unwelcome. The tinkling notes from a hidden lyre in the corner just grated on his ears. Very aware that G’raha was watching him, Z’kila bypassed the bar entirely and beckoned his companion to follow. 

The door at the back of the room closed on the Rising Stones and muffled the raucous chatting, clinking, laughing to a pleasant hum. Z’kila huffed a sigh of relief and the intense tingling of his nerve endings calmed. G’raha glanced around with his ears canted forward, intrigued to find vast living quarters behind the bar. ‘Is this-?’

‘Scion headquarters,’ said Z’kila, hurrying down the stairs and glancing around himself. Some people were still milling about while others were out on missions, diplomatic or combative. There was no sign of Alphinaud, no doubt wrapped up in the details regarding his new Crystal Braves. Which was a good thing. Z’kila did not want his ears chatted off this evening about diplomacy or armies or anything Scion related, quite frankly. He simply wanted a cold drink with a friend in the warmth and quiet. 

‘…Am I allowed to be here?’ G’raha asked, though by his tone and exploratory interest in the Rising Stones he didn’t much care. He met suspicious glances with jovial waves. 

‘The Students of Baldesion are allies of the Scions, no?’ Z’kila pointed out loud enough to appease those watching. He hopped over the counter of their own private bar and snagged two goblets alongside a bottle of wine. F’lhaminn’s gaze snapped to him from a table in the far corner and he held up his findings to her. Two goblets of wine weren’t going to go amiss and his most recent venture had earned him something more pleasant than ale, he tried to reason with a pleading look alone. Apparently appeased, she let him away with his theft. 

‘You aren’t in the mood for drunken singing then?’ G’raha joked as they sat themselves down at a table to themselves. The hum of the bar above and the quiet chatter of lingering Scions in the Stones was far more relaxing than complete silence without being overwhelming. 

Z’kila uncorked the wine and poured them both a generous amount. ‘Not tonight,’ he agreed with a small, slightly twisted smile. ‘I would like to pretend I don’t have to step foot into the Void in the coming moons, if you would indulge me.’ 

Sobering, G’raha’s ears twitched back as he took a sip from his goblet. Z’kila stared down into its fruity depths, watching the lantern light dance and skitter across the surface. It was a similar colour to the shadowy tendrils that had grabbed Unei and Doga from the realm of the living and yanked them through the rift. That had wrapped around Nero as he tried to save them—for his own nefarious purposes, perhaps, but to save them nonetheless. Picking up his goblet he made its contents swirl and distort the silhouetted reflection of his own face. 

‘Would you consider taking me with you?’ G’raha asked, eyes wide and pleading over the brim of his drink. 

Z’kila sighed softly and set his goblet down. ‘It isn’t as fun as the books make it out to be, you know. Spending bells upon bells with your skin on fire with dread and desperation. Knowing that every moment is a coin flip’s chance of being someone’s last and praying it isn’t _yours._ ’ 

G’raha lowered his gaze, eyelashes casting long shadows across pale cheekbones. ‘You should write your own ballads. Add a dash of realism to the legends the minstrels like to bring for the masses.’ 

‘Minstrels don’t care to tell the truth,’ Z’kila pointed out with a snort. He had plenty of experiences with one such character that took his tales and spun them into something far more heroic and epic than his own memory of events. ‘They want to tell a story. And those that listen want to hear one.’

‘Perhaps not, but historians do.’ 

A sidelong glance towards G’raha with a raised brow. ‘Debatable. Didn’t Allagan historians fail to make the connection between the first Emperor Xande and the last?’

G’raha set down his goblet and straightened up. ‘In fairness to them, prospects of cloning and resurrection were quite out of our realm of comprehension until perhaps five days ago. A namesake was the only viable and reasonable assumption to make.’ 

‘They were still _wrong._ ’ 

‘Listen-’ G’raha leant forward across the table, the beginnings of a scowl hinting between his eyebrows and his ears lowering a fraction. Z’kila listened and he goaded further, entranced by the passionate argument it brought out of his companion. His throat bobbed as he talked. Full lips stained pink by the wine created a myriad of pretty shapes around each word. Tail swayed arrhythmically at his side. Eyes of mismatching colours gazed intently into his. 

It was too easy to imagine all of these things in a very different context. 

Eyes glazing over at the memory of those lips, kiss-bruised, stretched around him and of the feeling of that tight throat, Z’kila forgot to respond to one apparently very good point of G’raha’s argument. An irritable click of fingers in front of his face brought his mind out of memory but his gaze was immediately drawn to the slight increased rise and fall of his companion’s chest. G’raha Tia made for a lovely distraction.

‘Are you even listening?’ 

Z’kila reached up to grab him by the back of the head and pulled him into a bruising kiss. G’raha caught himself with his hands splayed across the table between them, the sudden bang knocking Z’kila out of his reverie. His cheeks warmed as he glanced around and realised they had drawn the attention of a few other Scions, poor F’lhaminn included. 

‘…Let me show you around,’ he mumbled quickly, swiping up his wine goblet as he vacated his chair. He paused and then grabbed the bottle as well. G’raha, dazed and bewildered, was a moment behind him with his own goblet. 

The dormitory was entirely out of the question; never had Z’kila known less private sleeping quarters. He headed for the door on the western wall instead, poking his head inside to make sure the room beyond was empty before ushering his companion in ahead of him. Through the narrowing gap he met Hoary Boulder’s sharp, knowing gaze and glimpsed the widening smirk before the door clicked shut. 

‘Why do you want to show me a hospital wing…?’ 

G’raha trailed off as he glanced back to watch Z’kila turn the key in the lock. Deliberately keeping his eyes averted, Z’kila set the wine down on one of the bedside cabinets with slow care. A clink nearby told him that G’raha had done the same, an ear flicking to latch onto his uneven breaths. Steely silver eyes slid up to his companion, unsure if his desires would be returned, and G’raha snapped to him faster than a cobra’s strike. 

They stumbled a step as they collided, a fraction of a second stretched into an eon of shared, yearning gazes and gripping fingers curled around collars, lips parted around shallow breaths before they met. 

It was a clash of teeth, a fight for dominance over the kiss as they each fought to bite and nip at the other’s lip. Z’kila had several ilms’ height advantage but G’raha was the stronger of the two. A low, rumbling growl escaped his chest and his partner responded in kind. Claws sharp and clipped plucked and pulled at cloth, dragged across exposed shoulders and necks. Yanked hair free of its binds. Hearts galloped painfully out of rhythm and tails whipped from side to side. Tongues swiped at bruised, tender lips. Tasting of wine. 

The room began to spin. Neither willing to relent for even a moment, even an ilm, both could barely breathe. Growls of want and desire turned feral, threatening even through breathlessness. But Z’kila had spent the last two days at such an altitude that air was thin and breathing difficult.

He could wait. 

G’raha gasped, yielding at last. Sucking in a breath himself, Z’kila wrapped one arm around his lower back, pulled him flush and claimed his mouth. His free hand snaked up his spine to grip loose auburn locks, blunt claws scraping against his scalp. G’raha shivered beneath him. Z’kila grinned against his lips before plundering that hot, wet mouth with his tongue. 

Deep, growling groans emanated from his partner, vibrating through his chest and lips straight into Z’kila. Without so much as a hair’s breadth between them his interest was evident through layers of leather and cloth yet to be shed. Z’kila’s fist curled into the back of a crimson doublet, pulling fruitlessly while G’raha’s hands fumbled to push his own lapels off his shoulders. Sleeves caught on shoulders, on elbows. Buckles refused to unlatch. A thrum entirely unlike the one from the Tower roared through Z’kila’s veins, across his skin. 

He had to yank himself away. ‘Faster, faster,’ he hissed, feeling as though he would combust if he didn’t get out of his coat, if he didn’t get access to his lover’s chest in the next instant. 

_His lover._ He didn’t know, _couldn’t_ know, how accurate that label might be in this moment but mayhap just for tonight he could allow himself to believe it. However temporary it may prove to be. Right now he needed this distraction. 

Z’kila threw off his coat without a care for where it landed, his undershirt following. The buckles on his bracers took a fraction longer to coax free and his eyes wandered the length of G’raha’s upper half, exposed piece by piece in his haste to rid himself of the pesky clothing. Fore- and upper-arm muscles outlined and prominent beneath pale skin. An indent of his back following the line of his spine in the centre of a strong back that he longed to trace with his tongue. The shoulders of a marksman that not even a lifetime of hunting with a bow had produced in Z’kila himself. 

Shaking with the need to _touch,_ Z’kila had no patience to wait for their boots and trousers to join the growing carpet of clothing. He grabbed G’raha by the shoulder and spun him around to face him before he could do much more than loosen his belt. Hands snapped to hips to heave him onto the counter of a cabinet so he could look up into the face of this gorgeous creature. A knocked bottle smashed to the stone floor. Neither of them flinched. Not even an ear twitched. 

‘…You’re stronger than you look,’ G’raha teased with a weak, shaky laugh. Thighs parted to welcome Z’kila’s narrow hips between them. His breast heaved with each breath and drew the eye. 

‘I am full of surprises,’ Z’kila replied, unnervingly breathless himself. 

He ghosted close to G’raha’s lips, pulling away to give attention to his throat instead. He delighted in the groan he drew from his lover, a heady mix of frustration and pleasure. Teeth nipped and pulled at the skin above his pulse point, feeling the bob of his throat, worrying an angry red mark into his neck. One hand wandered; to feel every ilm of the body bared to him at last—the broad expanse of back, the dip of spine, the ripple of ribs, the curve of pectorals. Pebbling nipples. The other fumbled across the vials and bottles of the shelves above them, glancing up out of the corner of his eye to read the labels. There had to be something here they could use, some sort of lubricant that wouldn’t end up hurting one or both of them. 

G’raha’s hands weren’t idle. He moaned quietly and flinched under the abuse to his neck, latching onto the back of Z’kila’s head with claws digging in just slightly to keep him in place, to continue the pleasure-pain of his teeth. His free hand lifted to help with the search on the shelves as soon as he realised what he was looking for. 

‘Here,’ he panted, pressing a vial into a Z’kila’s fumbling hand. He spared the briefest glance to the scribbled label to be satisfied with the contents before pressing his mouth back to G’raha’s. Arms gathered under his tail, he pulled his lover from the counter. Legs clamped tightly around his hips to help with the lift, arms coming up to wrap loosely around his neck. 

Z’kila managed just three steps to the nearest bed, toppling heavily across the blankets with G’raha beneath him. They huffed a breath in tandem before lips found each other again. The growling, threatening display of dominance and the need to claim cooled just a fraction, simmering beneath the surface for a moment of gentler affection. Hands encompassed ears, stroked through loose locks while bare chests heaved against one another, sticky in the close heat. Outlines of erect members pressed together, a tease of friction through cloth that had tails thrashing without providing anything close to relief. 

Simmering flames grew back into a roaring blaze and Z’kila pulled himself away from intoxicating lips, addictive all on their own without the added tart sweetness of the wine. He pressed a series of nipping, bruising kisses across G’raha’s jaw and traced the lines of the Archon tattoo with the tip of his tongue, pausing to worry his teeth into his mark and releasing a growling purr at the wince and groan it earned him. 

He left a trail of biting kisses all the way down G’raha’s sternum and navel. Revelled in every flinch and twitch of the muscles beneath pale skin. Tonguing at the skin at his waistband, Z’kila looked up through thick lashes to take in the sprawling, squirming visage of one beautiful miqo’te man beneath him, reddish hair fanned out stark against the pillow and his hands up by drooping ears. Eyelids heavy and face flushed. 

Z’kila would devour this man. 

Sitting up to kick off his boots, trembling fingers pulled and tore at G’raha’s laces until impatience got the better of him and he simply yanked them off his legs one by one. He yipped in surprise at the rough handling, dragged halfway down the mattress by the sheer force of demanding hands. Then he scrambled back on his elbows, Z’kila chasing him back into place with a silent glare as he crawled back up his body. Fingers curled around a loosened belt and tugged. G’raha lifted his hips, obedient. 

Stripped down to his smalls, he made a stunning sight. Musculature lightly outlined down his abdomen, his thighs, across his shoulders. Z’kila wanted to trace every single line with his tongue. To taste all of him. But he hadn’t the patience for it this instant. 

He hooked G’raha’s knees over his arms and lay between them, thighs pushed into his chest as hands braced either side of his head. Wide, hungry eyes stared up at him through a mess of damp hair. Hips pressed flush together, there was one less layer between them. Z’kila rocked, grinding against him and dove in to claim and swallow the unsatisfied groan that escaped his lover. 

‘…Hurry up,’ came the murmured demand against Z’kila’s lips, softened only somewhat by the breathless desperation of his tone. 

‘Eager, are you?’ he replied, pulling away to look down at him. Braced on his hands, G’raha’s knees still pressed back under his arms, he lifted one to trace sensitive red lips. He pushed the pad of his thumb against the small needle point of a subtle canine. ‘After I worked so hard to bring you pleasure all the way from the Tower?’ 

‘I brought myself pleasure,’ G’raha retorted, biting down on his thumb. 

‘ _So_ ungrateful.’ Z’kila grinned, a punishing nip bitten into the other side of his neck. ‘I haven’t been able to have even that. Just the tease of this pretty mouth and the lovely sounds it can make.’ 

The flush deepened to a crimson blush, spreading all the way across the bridge of his nose. ‘Mayhap our positions should be reversed then.’ 

Glazed with lust and want as they were, there was a genuine question in G’raha’s eyes. Z’kila shook his head, nipping at his neck again. ‘I want to lose myself in you tonight.’ He needed to think of nothing but the man beneath him, to make him writhe and scream in ecstasy. He wanted to forget everything else. The Tower, Amon, Xande, the Void. The world entire. His own pleasure was secondary; far easier to lose himself in someone else’s. ‘You can do as you like to me another time.’ 

A flash of emotion crossed G’raha’s face but it was gone before Z’kila had a chance to identify it. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said with a toothy grin. ‘Very well. Do as you like. _Lose yourself._ ’ 

Z’kila pitched forward to claim his lips, swallowing a breathy groan as he rocked his hips against G’raha again, a promising imitation of what he would be doing before long. Then he shuffled back down his body, releasing the tight curl of his legs to press a lingering open-mouthed kiss to the straining outline of his member through the fabric of his smalls. Gaze locked on his lover’s face, he dragged the rough flat of his tongue up from root to tip. Contrasting eyes watched him, chest heaving with what could have been either anticipation or pure pleasure, until Z’kila reached his clothed tip and sucked lightly. He threw one arm over his face and moaned. 

His own impatience getting the better of him, Z’kila sat up to drag that one offending remainder of clothing from G’raha’s body and threw it over his shoulder. He kept himself firmly confined in his own trousers even as the ache in his groin was verging on the point of painful; easier to keep his hands off himself until his lover was ready for him. His mouth returned to that reddening member, hard and heavy against prominent abdominal muscles while his hands urged knees to bend and spread. 

G’raha arched and gasped as Z’kila swallowed him down, one hand flying down to grasp at bronze locks, to wrap around a velvety ear and _tug_ while the other fisted into the sheets above his head. 

Z’kila growled around his length, pulling a choked moan from him, torn between pride at the vocal reactions from his partner and indignation at the tugging on his ear. But he allowed it; fumbling instead for the vial of oil left on the blankets at the edge of the bed to coat his fingers. 

Letting his lover’s length bump against the back of his throat, he rubbed gently up and down the line of G’raha’s rear, pressing over his entrance and delighting in the squirms he earned. An auburn tail came up to wrap tightly about his wrist and up his arm, a grounding contact holding him in place. Easing off with his mouth, Z’kila watched attentively for any sign of discomfort as he dipped just the tip of one finger inside, testing. G’raha squirmed, breath leaving him in shaky bursts but there was no evidence of pain. He was hot, tight- but yielded to his presence without even token resistance and Z’kila found himself curious to know whether he had done this before, on his own or with a partner.

Movements slow, he stroked his way deeper a fraction at a time—in and out, slowly. In and out. 

‘I’m not made of porcelain…’ G’raha whispered with a trembling laugh, hooded eyes peeking out from beneath his arm. 

‘Is that an invitation to be rough with you?’ Z’kila teased while his motions remained unchanged. He curled that one finger up on the withdrawal, tail giving a pleased flick at the responding stuttered sigh. Not imagining the feel of this hot tightness clenched around him elsewhere was a heady struggle. He returned with a second finger, gently twisting and stretching.

‘It means,’ G’raha ground out, caught somewhere in the liminal space between discomfort and pleasure, ‘that there is no need to fear breaking me.’ His tail tightened around Z’kila’s arm and pulled him in, sinking both fingers up to the knuckles. A moaning sigh accompanied the intrusion and they had to allow themselves a moment to cool and adjust. Z’kila rested his forehead against G’raha’s knee, untouched himself but entirely intoxicated by the sounds and expressions betraying his lover’s pleasure. 

_Very well,_ Z’kila complied privately, eyelashes fluttering as his gaze found G’raha’s face. Reddened, abused lips parted slightly to breathe through the sensations in his lower half. The splotches of pink and red spread from his cheeks down his neck and across his shoulders. Z’kila watched him, stroking and pressing against his soft inner walls, searching for the right spot to make him keen. 

Hooking one leg over his shoulder, Z’kila bent low to lick a long, broad stripe up the underside of G’raha’s length before he took him in down to the root and simultaneously crooked his fingers just so. 

One hand clapped to G’raha’s mouth, muffling the low, raw groan that ripped from his throat. Thighs twitched and threatened to smother the bringer of such pleasure before he could stop himself. Hips arched off the blankets, forcing that wet, willing mouth to take him deeper. Z’kila relaxed his throat and allowed it, slipping in a third finger to spread him wider, to open up his lover ready to take him. 

He stroked over that spot with every pass of his fingers, hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard on his length. To bring him to the brink. G’raha writhed beneath him, heels digging into the blankets and knocking into Z’kila’s sides, ragged breaths tearing from his throat no matter how much he tried to muffle himself. A hand flew to grab hold of an ear again, pulling hard.

‘St-stop, please stop!’ he begged, panting. Z’kila winced and eased off of him, stilling his fingers. 

‘Are you alright?’ he asked with a voice that was entirely wrecked and hoarse, deep with intense arousal. 

G’raha laughed breathlessly, stroking the ear between his fingers. ‘More than. I just don’t want to come on your fingers.’ 

Z’kila’s mind whited out momentarily at such crude words from such well-spoken lips but then he was pulling free and crawling up his body to press his own to them. An innocent kiss compared to their earlier battle for dominance but still full of heat, of want. G’raha’s hands traced the length of Z’kila’s arms, across his chest, down his sides to find his belt. The buckle yielded with a satisfying clink. Scrabbling fingers shoved trousers and smalls together down his hips, freeing him, and fought to get them down to his knees. Z’kila pulled back to watch G’raha’s brow twitch in frustration, an amused grin playing at the corners of his mouth. 

‘…I think we’re okay,’ he pointed out, glancing down at his member, hanging hard and heavy between his legs. 

‘I want them off,’ G’raha argued, scowling up at him. ‘I want to be able to see all of you.’ 

‘You’ve seen all of me before. You know what I look like.’ 

‘Well I want to see you again.’ 

A beat of silence, scowling eyes staring into amused, baffled ones before a short, breathy laugh broke the stalemate. ‘So demanding,’ Z’kila teased, pressing a brief, chaste kiss to his smirking mouth before he helped kick off the rest of his clothing. 

The two of them entirely bared to one another, Z’kila settled himself over G’raha, bracketed by strong thighs. The room seemed warmer without a shred of fabric between them. Olive skin glided over fair as lips met again, simple at first before the intensity grew to a clash of tongues and teeth, licking, nipping, biting, tasting one another. 

Z’kila braced himself on one arm and reached down between them to coat himself in the rest of the oil and take hold of his member, pausing momentarily as he fought with the urge to grip and stroke, neglected as he was. Even the light, blunt pressure of the pliant body beneath him as he lined himself up had him sighing into G’raha’s mouth, his lover pressing up against him to chase the sound. 

A shared moan at the first ilm. Shaking sighs at the second. Beads of sweat sprung up across both bodies, joined at last, plastering hair to necks and faces and sticking skin to skin. G’raha’s knees came up to squeeze at Z’kila’s ribs, legs lifted high to ease the way and he forced his eyes open, forced himself to look down at his partner and focus on him, his pleasure, potential discomfort. He pressed small comforting kisses to the corners of a tense mouth, to the edge of his jaw as he pressed in further, one ilm at a time with his eyes on G’raha’s face, relishing the sheer perfection enveloping him. 

They shared a breathless moment of adjustment when Z’kila hilted, hips pressed flush to G’raha’s rear. He rested his forehead against a heaving chest, struggling to remain still when every nerve in his body urged him to thrust and chase his own release—and he knew he wouldn’t last even a minute if he did. His tail swayed from side to side, the tip flicking about like a whip in the fruitless attempt to rid himself of the pent up energy. 

Gentle fingers carded through damp bronze locks, brushing strands off his face. ‘I’m alright. You can move.’ 

‘ _You_ might be,’ Z’kila mumbled with a strained laugh that sounded more like a scoff, breath ghosting across a nipple. ‘Give me a moment.’ Fingers paused their ministrations and G’raha shuffled just slightly beneath him. The confusion radiated off of him in waves though he asked no questions and Z’kila huffed a sigh. ‘I’ve had your mouth on me and listened to you find your end and found mine neither time so I need a _moment._ ’ 

Another hesitation and then G’raha started to laugh, his chest shaking where Z’kila rested on him. He would have been indignant had the motion not done things to the way they were connected; velvety walls clenched around him, vibrating with every tremble which decidedly did not help. 

Without thinking he pressed a hand over G’raha’s mouth to silence him. ‘ _Don’t laugh,_ by the Twelve,’ he moaned, shoulders trembling and ears flat with the effort of staving off the urge to simply take and use him. Eyes of ruby and sapphire flashed above that binding hand, shining and glassy and filled with arousal. Z’kila bit his tongue against the tingling jolt that sparked across his skin and centred in his groin. _He likes this,_ he realised as the room spun around them. He would have been happy to oblige him…had he not wanted to kiss him too badly. There would be time for play, if G’raha would have him again. 

He bruised his lips with the force of crushing them to G’raha’s, drawing an exhilarated moan from his partner as he claimed his mouth with a demanding tongue, tracing the sharp edges and points of teeth before playing with drew in the other’s to play with him. At the same time he began slow, shallow rocks of his hips, testing himself as much as his lover, grinding as deep as he could physically go before withdrawing just a fraction to repeat the motion. He swallowed every shaking breath, every rumbling groan. 

Grasping fingers clung to his hair, pulling and tugging while claws threatened to cut into his back. Z’kila hissed, the pinpricks of pain simply adding to his pleasure. His back was a patchwork of scars already—may as well add a few that he’ll enjoy receiving. Bracing himself on one arm, the other sneaked under G’raha’s lower back to support his hips and angle them to his liking, changing the pattern of his own slow thrusts until-

G’raha yanked his head away from the kiss with a ragged shout before he could muffle himself in his palm, claws leaving impressive scratches across the one unburned shoulder blade. Z’kila grinned against a pale throat, teeth scraping lightly where he yearned to bite. Without allowing him a moment of respite, he picked up a punishing pace, abusing that spot over and over. Maintaining the right angle strained both his arms but that was a good thing; the discomfort kept Z’kila’s own impending end at bay. G’raha squirmed and writhed beneath him, low snapping groans escaping around the palm clamped over his mouth. His other hand found a bronze ear to hold onto. His ankles came up to lock over the base of a swishing tail. 

Z’kila nibbled and sucked a chain of bruising marks down his neck and over his shoulder, panting with the effort of keeping both the rhythm and pace of his movements and finding pleasure in the vocal bliss of his partner alone. 

He brought him to the edge and slowed just a fraction, holding him there while G’raha thrashed and keened beneath him, abandoning the effort to keep himself quiet in favour of clawing into the blankets above his head. Their bodies pressed too closely together for him to reach for himself. Long strands of hair clung to his face and neck, dark with his sweat. He lifted his hips to meet Z’kila’s every thrust, gasps heightening in pitch until they stopped altogether.

An animalistic growl ripped from between his teeth and he twisted to smother his face into the pillow, tears of frustration springing to his eyes. Perhaps adding insult to injury, Z’kila purred into his neck, breathless himself as he slowly began to move again. 

‘Are you ready to come?’ he whispered.

G’raha growled again. ‘Yes, _yes,_ by the Twelve, _yes,_ ’ he gasped. 

Z’kila grinned down at him, tongue darting out to lick away the salty trail left behind by a tear. ‘Then you’ll have to wait for me.’ 

Eyes flashed. Z’kila stilled, frightened he had done something wrong when G’raha pulled _hard_ on his ear, knocked his bracing arm out from underneath him and bucked his hips. The room spun again and he found himself on his back, blinking up at the most unimpressed expression he had ever laid eyes on. ‘Very well,’ G’raha growled through gritted teeth. ‘But we’ll go at my pace.’ 

Leaning one hand on a his chest, claws digging indents into a pectoral, he grabbed hold of Z’kila to impale himself again. A gasped sigh from them both and G’raha planted his feet either side of narrow hips and started to ride him with the same speed and intensity as before. He leant back, bracing himself on Z’kila’s thighs and deepening the connection. 

He had been an intoxicating sight beneath him, writhing and mewling with hungering want, but upright and in control like this with his head thrown back in ecstasy was just as addictive. Z’kila’s hands gripped his hips to try and slow the pace somewhat, ashamed of how close he was despite just starting up again but G’raha was having none of it. His thighs trembled with the exertion but a vague, blissed-out smile played on his mouth when every thrust drew out a quiet, desperate moan. 

Z’kila abandoned all ideas of drawing this out further, too close and needy for release, and sat up to meet G’raha. One arm wrapped around his hips beneath a spasming tail, offering some support to ease the strain of riding him while his other hand snaked between them to take that twitching, leaking member tightly in hand. G’raha keened and scrabbled for his shoulders, pressing a messy, uncoordinated kiss to his lips. 

‘…Raha,’ Z’kila warned, panting into his mouth. 

‘Me too…’ 

‘Can I-?’ 

‘ _Yes._ Want you inside.’ 

Those words alone were enough to push him over the brink. He tensed and pitched forwards with a broken moan, teeth threatening to bite into the juncture of neck and shoulder as he released deep inside, his head swimming with the pleasure of knowing what G’raha had permitted him. His lover rode him through it, chasing his own end as a hand tugged on one ear and his teeth bit harshly into the other, drawing out a pained groan as the immense pleasure began to subside. His other hand caught a swaying tail, fingers wrapping tightly around it and yanking as he _screamed._

Z’kila flinched and hissed; overwhelmed by the sheer volume so close to his sore ear, deep and rumbling and feral, by the sharp ache at the base of his spine, by the oversensitivity in his nethers as G’raha clenched around him and his seed splashed between them. 

They sat together, still connected with arms wrapped tightly around one another as they panted through the afterglow and the sheen of perspiration that coated them both began to cool. At length G’raha unlatched his teeth from Z’kila’s ear. ‘…Sorry,’ he muttered, hoarse, pressing a kiss to the edge. 

‘For pulling my tail or biting my ear?’ Z’kila asked, trying to tease through the deep set exhaustion beginning to settle in his bones in place of arousal. 

‘…Both?’ G’raha offered with a coy smile. He leant forward, encouraging his partner to lie back down as he rolled off him. They winced in tandem as Z’kila slipped free, lying side by side. They glanced at each other before looking away, sporting identical blushes and chuckling in embarrassment. 

A lazy hand smacked Z’kila on the chest. ‘Go and get a wash cloth.’ 

‘Why must I?’

‘Because I’m the one in a mess.’ 

‘And I am oh so clean?’ Z’kila demanded, gesturing to the stripes of white fluid across his chest and stomach. He rolled out of the way of another half-hearted smack, landing lightly on his feet. ‘Alright, alright. I know what you mean,’ he teased, flicking his tail at G’raha as he wandered back to the cabinet and the basin of water they had miraculously managed to avoid knocking over. He eyed the series of overturned bottles and vials as he wetted a cloth and decided against righting them; someone could laugh about them later. 

‘You’ve done that before,’ G’raha mused, possibly to himself. 

‘Of course,’ Z’kila said, giving himself a wipe down of both seed and sweat. Then he paused, glancing over his shoulder. ‘…Haven’t you?’ 

‘…Not like that,’ G’raha admitted, moving to sit up, wincing and apparently thinking better of it. ‘It was different than I expected.’ 

‘Did you expect it to be bad?’ Z’kila returned to the bedside and dropped the cloth onto his stomach before he turned to the next bed over and pulled the blankets back. With so many to choose from it made little sense to sleep in one coated in sweat and grime. 

G’raha smirked up at him, cleaning himself off. ‘I didn’t realise you were bigger than me.’ 

‘I _am_ bigger than you.’

‘You are _taller_ than me,’ he corrected. ‘Skinnier, though.’ Z’kila whacked him with his tail, scowling playfully before he leant down to help him up into the clean bed. With the high fading both of them were struggling to suppress shivers. ‘We’re alright to stay the night here?’ 

‘Unless someone bangs on the door at some point we should be fine.’ Z’kila pulled the blankets over them both and curled himself around G’raha, enjoying his warmth too much to let go. His tail sought out the other’s and twined them. 

G’raha nestled into his chest, head tucked up under his chin. ‘…I’m glad you’re okay, Z’kila,’ he murmured against his skin. He considered those words. _Okay_ didn’t seem quite right. He was largely uninjured if exhausted, but satiated and relaxed. This road he had seen before and knew come morning he would most definitely not be okay. But for now, at least, his demons were quiet. He nuzzled into auburn hair, sighing softly. 

‘Kila’s fine.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! ♥


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Warrior of Light begins to struggle with the combined weight of his responsibilities and past failures and G'raha offers what comfort he can whilst facing inner riddles and questions of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter contains references to and discussions of past self-harm. It is a short section of dialogue that is all typeset in _italics_ to make it easier to skip over this section if you need to. Please look after yourself ♥
> 
> This chapter also contains explicit sexual content between two men.
> 
> Aulani, thank you for letting me reference your lovely Warrior in this chapter! ♥

Vast expanses of azure walkways, platforms connected by endless staircases of stone and crystal, geometric angles smoothing out into curving spirals. The rushing roar of cascading waterfalls from high, high above. Echoing chatter and laughter, invisible ghosts drifting by as music played somewhere near the summit and fell around him, carried on the water. An enclosed corridor leading to one big gold-gilded door, shut tight but welcoming all the same. No corners, no windows, no other doors. Each step took him closer. A phantom hand reached out…

G’raha opened his eyes to the murky grey canvas wall of the tent. The distant soft lapping at the shore of Lake Silvertear and the low whistling of the wind gusting through the camp drew attention to just how quiet it was; the middle of the night with only a handful of people keeping guard at the base of Syrcus Tower. Stretching, he peeked towards the tent flaps and found only darkness. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the canvas ceiling. This dream had come to him again, as it had the past two weeks since stepping foot into the Tower for the first time. Some of it was accurate to memory, but the long corridor was different. He hadn’t seen anything like it in the real tower. G’raha sighed, wondering what had woken him. 

A whimper from the cot to his right answered that question. Z’kila’s back was to him, mostly covered by his bedroll but his ears fluttered against his hair. Every breath came harsher than the last, shallow and woven between ragged whimpers. 

Sitting up, G’raha found himself caught between wanting to wake him from this plaguing nightmare and wanting to let him sleep, as he hadn’t let himself properly rest since the night shared in Scion headquarters—but was this kind of sleep even restful? The choice was made for him when legs and tail trapped within the bedroll started to flail and fight their confines, whimpers turning to soft, pained cries. 

G’raha scrambled off his cot and leant over Z’kila, one hand on his shoulder to shake him awake while the other fumbled for the fastenings of his bedroll to release his limbs. ‘Kila,’ he urged, hushed still for fear of waking up the rest of the camp. ‘Kila, wake up. You’re okay. Wake up.’ 

He lurched upright, grabbing at G’raha’s arms with bruising fingers. ‘I’m  _ sorry, _ ’ he whispered between gasps, eyes flying open to reveal pupils as thin as needles. ‘I’m  _ so sorry- _ ’ 

‘It’s okay, you’re okay,’ G’raha repeated, hands coming up to grasp either side of Z’kila’s face and forcing his head up to meet his gaze. For a moment silvery eyes remained glassy and grey, looking at G’raha whilst seeing something else entirely before consciousness caught up to him and he focused on the man before him. He dipped his head, trembling between gentle hands. ‘It was just a dream. You’re safe.’ 

Z’kila laughed once, a broken bark that sounded more like a sob. He had been gone for the majority of the last two days on some secret venture that he would only talk about in riddles and omitted half-truths—and possibly also simple downright lies—no matter how many different ways G’raha thought to ask. It was something to do with Dalamud and that was about all he could discern; on the hunt for Bahamut after all, most like. He had returned only for brief intervals looking for a warm meal before he was away again with barely a spare moment to send even a smile G’raha’s way. 

He wrapped up the Warrior of Light in as warm an embrace as he could. The excursion into the Tower followed by whatever horrors he had faced during his absence since without rest was starting to take its toll. Z’kila pressed his face into his neck, prying his fingers loose of biceps to wrap around his back instead. 

G’raha could smell himself on Z’kila, betraying their coupling though it was fading now. They weren’t, at least, surrounded by miqo’te that would be able to pick up on it instantly. There was a Moonkeeper among the Sons that had cast him a curious look the previous evening but thankfully hadn’t asked outright and given them away. It didn’t feel right for the rest of NOAH to know. It wasn’t necessary. 

At length the trembling subsided and Z’kila’s breathing evened out. G’raha let him settle, let him find calm before asking in a low voice, ‘Do you want to sleep like this?’ 

He jerked away, sucking in a breath. ‘No. No sleep.’ His grasp tightened, blunt claws digging into G’raha’s bare back. ‘I need to wake up.’ Pulling away, Z’kila clambered out of his cot and ducked through the tent flaps in nothing but his smalls. G’raha made to follow but had the sense to pull on trousers and boots, string his bow and throw his quiver over his shoulder first. Z’kila was already halfway to the lake’s shore by the time he emerged from the tent himself, feet cut and bleeding on the sharp edges of crystal and rock. He walked straight into the water, freezing now with the turn of the season but barely flinched. 

G’raha remained on the bank, watching his back where the healing scratches he had left across the patched scarring. He had done so at the summit of the Tower as they had been accosted by lifeless clones of the Void, had been exhilarated at the time to have that opportunity, and would stand vigilant over him as long as Z’kila needed. Mor Dhona at night was not silent but the barren, petrified landscape made it seem eerily stagnant. 

Z’kila lurched forward onto his hands and knees and stuck his head under the water. G’raha stood guard over him, eyes and ears out for gigas and golems alike. The longer he remained submerged, the more he found his mind and gaze drawn back to the Tower. He didn’t know how long they had before the Ironworks could open up the portal to the Void but until then there was something about the place that he had to discover. The pull he had felt at the door was stronger tenfold now. There was something he had to find. He didn’t know what yet but there was something. 

A splash alerted him to Z’kila’s emergence. ‘Go back to bed, Raha,’ he called back through streams of water without turning. 

‘Would you come with me?’ G’raha asked, reluctant to draw his gaze away. A high-pitched laugh was the only response, almost manic in its intensity. ‘Then I’m quite happy here.’ 

With his back turned towards him he couldn’t make out Z’kila’s expression but the tilt to his shoulders and minute shake of his head that indicated a glance cast skyward. Dripping wet and shivering, he fell back onto his rear to sit in the shallows where the water lapped at his hips. Uncomfortably cold himself, G’raha was loathe to follow him in, even to offer some comfort. But he stepped into the shallowest reaches of the shore all the same, reluctant to let the freezing water dampen the fur fringes on his boots and seep in. 

_ ‘Your feet must be sore,’ he said, unnerved by the quiet and for want of anything else to say. Thin tendrils of blood spiralled from Z’kila’s soles, wisps of colour in the clear, dark water. ` _

_ He wiggled his toes in response, eyes on them with his head tilted to one side as though considering them like they belonged to someone else. Refusing to look round at G’raha, he answered at length. ‘Sometimes bleeding helps.’ G’raha looked sharply at him and he turned his face away, staring out across the lake with the same glassy-eyed look from the moment he had woken. Pupils blown wide. ‘…It’s easier if it looks unintentional. People don’t ask questions,’ he added with a vague gesture towards his feet and G’raha glimpsed the pale shine of old scar tissue in unnaturally regimented lines down his forearm. They were faint, shallow; with time they would fade entirely. _

_ G’raha swallowed. As often as he’d seen Z’kila bathe, as close as he’d been to his bare body, he had never noticed them before. ‘…You hurt yourself?’ he asked quietly, uncertain how to react to this revelation.  _

_ Z’kila shook his head and the glassy sheen to his eyes faded. ‘Not anymore. But when it happens I’m not exactly in a hurry to stop it.’  _

_ He wished he knew healing magic. Wished he could kiss away all of his scars and leave him as smooth and untouched as the day he was born, though he knew not even the most powerful of White Mages would be able to heal the wounds that tormented his mind. Wet feet be damned, G’raha set his bow aside and splashed over to him and squatted at his side, pressing his forehead to a damp, bare shoulder to provide contact without overwhelming or entrapping him. He wanted to understand, to be able to help but didn’t know how to ask. _

_ A moment’s hesitation before Z’kila rested his head atop G’raha’s, cheek against a soft, flattened ear. ‘Bleeding…is a relief,’ he went on at length as though he heard G’raha’s thoughts, voice low and strained like the words protested being spoken. ‘The pain just comes with it.’ _

For the lack of knowing what to say, G’raha lifted one hand to play with strands of dark, damp hair at the back of Z’kila’s neck. ‘…Can we get out of the lake? Not to sleep,’ he added quickly. ‘Just out of the water. Let’s get warm and comfortable at least.’ 

Z’kila lifted his head and for a moment looked as though he would refuse. But then he gave a soft sigh and clambered to his feet, pulling G’raha with him. ‘You don’t have to stay with me,’ he muttered, wading back to the bank. ‘You should go back to bed. Don’t you want to head back into the Tower come the morning?’ 

‘I can sleep when I’m old,’ he jested in return, taking hold of his wrist to lead him up the smoother patches of rock. ‘If I can be a distraction for you then I will be.’ 

Z’kila paused where the water met the bank, lapping at his ankles. He ignored G’raha’s urgings to keep walking, teeth gnawing on his lower lip. ‘Would you consider distracting me now?’

‘Here?’ G’raha glanced around. Rock and crystal and water. There was nothing to even hunt or hide from. A strong arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him flush to Z’kila’s wet, largely bare body. A shy, questioning gaze greeted him when he looked up, hands hovering a hair’s breadth from a smooth chest. He swallowed. ‘What would you have me do?’ he asked in a low murmur, imagining a fumbling attempt to recreate what they had done a week ago in the relative comfort of the hospital wing. The rock would be punishing on his knees and yet he would do it. For him. 

‘Let me taste you.’ 

It was dark and eerily silent, gigas and golems and Azeyma knew what else just beyond the edges of their vision, the camp just a short walk away. The atmosphere did not at all lend itself to arousal and despite all of that G’raha’s blood pooled in his cheeks and rushed south anyway. 

Words escaped him and so he stood up on his toes to capture his lips instead. Fingers gripped shoulders, claws digging light indents into olive skin. Z’kila tightened his hold on his waist, bending him back over his arm with the force of his returning kiss. A swaying tail flicked droplets of water against G’raha’s sides and backed into a faintly glowing protrusion of crystal. It was a kiss that bruised his lips and stole his breath away before Z’kila dropped to his knees. 

There was no teasing this time, no build up of anticipation. Z’kila pulled G’raha’s trousers and smalls down together just enough to give him access to his hardening member. He nosed into his groin, breathing deep of his scent before tracing the dipped line of his hip with the tip of his tongue. G’raha set both palms flat against the crystal at his back, twitching under reverent touches and burning under an equally adoring gaze, shining silver beneath inky black lashes. The weight of the trust in those eyes was near suffocating. 

Z’kila wrapped long, callused fingers around one of those flattened palms and brought it to his hair at the base of his right ear. It was still damp but drying in kinking waves under G’raha’s carding fingers, surprisingly soft even so. He leant into the touch with a low purr. ‘Guide me?’ he whispered with such open vulnerability that it was doubtful he was referring to only this. 

Swallowing, G’raha offered a shaky nod and rubbed small circles into the silky fur between fingers and thumb. Z’kila turned his head to press a chaste,  _ loving _ kiss to his palm. He snaked an arm around one leg to lean against and took hold of a jutting hip with the other hand. 

Knees buckled and teeth clamped down onto a knuckle as Z’kila pleasured him with his mouth, swallowing him down and sucking hard all the way back up to his tip. G’raha would come apart in mere moments this way, offered no reprieve for even a beat. One hand fisted into bronze hair, less guiding than holding on for dear life as a clever tongue urged him closer to the edge at the rate of a flying arrow. 

Under the night sky, enveloped in a gentle blue glow, G’raha found his shattering end with a gasping cry, the shining beacon of the Crystal Tower burning into his retinas. 

*

Construction on Revenant’s Toll was well underway when Z’kila made his way back after several weeks of following cold trails in search of Dalamud’s core. While he had managed brief visits back to the Sons’ camp at every spare moment to snag hot meals and mere snippets of G’raha’s attention, he hadn’t spared a glance at the development around the Aetheryte any time he teleported in. Wooden scaffolding supported rising stone walls, a great new building beginning to take shape at the northern rock face. Rowena’s place, no doubt, as the woman herself was hovering over every brick being laid and barking instructions to the poor men and women that no doubt knew better than she did on such matters. 

As usual, the place was bustling with adventurers, travelling merchants, the handful of permanent townsguards milling about while construction went on all around them, high up on the outer walls and on the roof of the workshop. The Doman refugees all had an incredible work ethic, every single one of them working ungodly hours to speed up the process down to the children that ran about passing tools between the adults. There was even a proper cobblestone road now; when had that happened? 

Firefoot gave a feral squawk as Z’kila swung down from her back and flapped her little wings aggressively at the chocobokeep that took her reins from him. Quite used to her by now, the keeper simply ducked out of the way of her gnashing beak and led her to the stables at arm’s length. Z’kila gave her a pat on the flank as she left and headed for the Seventh Heaven, filled to the brim with lethargic dread. 

Gentle tinkling notes from the minstrel’s lyre floated about the room like the lapping of the lake’s shore, complementing the crackling embers of the fireplace. A few lingering individuals from the luncheon hour sat around the tables, some of them day drinking and others licking the last few breadcrumbs from plates. Among them was the one hyuran adventurer that had sent him to kill a morbol under the guise of proving himself to the Guild. Z’kila suppressed a sneer in his direction. No level of desperation could bring him to ask such a craven for help. At the bar, however, with one slender leg crossed over the other with a dark mane of curls cascading down her back was the Keeper conjurer that had kept them all alive throughout the Labyrinth and the Tower. 

A vulpine ear flicked towards him as he approached. ‘Oh no,’ she muttered, loudly enough for him to catch. Turning towards him, she set her elbow on the table and cupped a delicate hand around her chin. ‘What, pray tell, have you come to request of me this time?’ 

‘Must you assume I come asking for something every time you see me?’ he asked as he perched on the next stool and mirrored her stance. 

‘Well, both times so far have been a request to join your party into ancient, perilous ruins. It stands to reason the third would be also. So tell me, did you find another tower atop the Tower?’ 

Z’kila grimaced. ‘I don’t know about a tower but we certainly found a portal.’ The corners of her mouth twitched into a tiny self-satisfied smirk and he resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. ‘Is…uh- what’s her name? The one with the axe, did she get suitable healer attention after the battle with the Emperor?’ 

‘Lost Iris?’ she supplied, unimpressed. ‘I did what I could for her on the journey back but the medics here set her on a cart back to Ul’dah. Multiple breaks to the feet need specialist attention in a better facility.’ She tossed her hair over one shoulder. ‘Needless to say, she will  _ not _ be available to jump through this portal of yours.’ 

‘It is possible I was simply asking after her welfare,’ he pointed out with a sniff. 

‘Oh yes, you must have been losing sleep with concern over the woman whose name you cannot recall.’ She took a long, languid sip of what smelt like simple water from her goblet. ‘What lies beyond this portal of yours then?’

‘The Void.’ 

She snorted a soft laugh, new-moon eyes flicking towards him before the amusement faded from her expression. ‘…You aren’t jesting?’ 

‘I am not,’ he said. ‘I’m not expecting you to agree to this particular venture but I would be indebted to your talent for healing were you to choose to.’ 

A hum of consideration danced about her mouth, elegant fingers coming up to tap against her lower lip. The teasing was purposeful, he was sure. ‘It is remarkably tempting to garner favour of the Warrior of Light,’ she said, taunting him like gysahl greens on the end of a stick hanging just out of reach of a chocobo. ‘Very well. Presume I agree, what number would that make us?’ 

‘With you?’ Z’kila pretended to count on his fingers. ‘That would make…two.’ 

Her jaw fell slack, eyebrows rising just a fraction as she processed that ridiculous answer. Then a small scoff of a laugh escaped her throat as one hand came up to rub at the bridge of her nose. ‘Just two. I see. Am I the first you have asked or the first to agree?’ 

‘There is very little point asking anyone unless I can secure a few healers,’ he explained. ‘As it stands I’m reluctant to ask any of those that abandoned us after Amon but we will need more than just you.’ She hummed her agreement. ‘With the roe- With Lost Iris out of action we are down to four. Assuming the dragoon and the thaumaturge agree to an expedition into the Void.’ He had to laugh at his own words, the simple absurdity of what he was asking. 

‘Do you remember no one’s names?’ she asked, exasperated. ‘Do you remember mine?’ 

He glanced away into the soft orange glow of the fireplace. ‘It’s easier to stomach when those who don’t come back are nameless,’ he said, voice monotone. ‘Should you survive this last adventure I will permit you to tell me again and I will endeavour to remember it.’ 

Her expression was tight when he looked back at her, unamused and perhaps just a touch disappointed. ‘Then I will endeavour to come back alive. Mayhap I shall have it branded into your palm so that you may never forget it again, even when you are old and grey and your memory fails you. That can be your debt repaid for my loyalty on this venture.’ 

‘If it would secure your cane on this occasion then I would readily agree.’ 

‘Z’kila! There you are.’ 

He flicked an ear towards the approaching young elezen, striding with a commanding presence despite his size. Z’kila dreaded the day Alphinaud would grow and he’d have to look up to him. He grimaced in apology towards the Keeper conjurer. ‘I’m a little preoccupied at the moment-’ 

‘So I see,’ Alphinaud went on with a flicker of a scathing glance towards her. ‘But I’m afraid this can’t wait.’

An awkward pause stretched out between the three of them. Z’kila bit his tongue against a barbed retort and settled for staring over at the fire instead. His expression remained blank but he was not above letting his fellow Scion know he was miffed. The conjurer cleared her throat pointedly. ‘Well I can see when I’m intruding.’ She slid gracefully off the stool and swiped up the hooked cane at her side. ‘I may have a colleague interested in joining us. I will send word and keep you updated.’ 

With a sweep of her white robes and a toss of dark waves, she turned on her heel and headed for the door leading out into the plaza. She had bite. Z’kila resented the interruption in spite of securing her aid and heaved a frustrated sigh through his nose. ‘I was rather enjoying that conversation,’ he muttered, spinning on his stool to lean his elbows on the bar behind him. ‘Well then. Where’s the fire?’ 

‘As much as it pains me to interrupt your flirting, I have received word from Camp Dragonhead outlining a request from the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights to meet. I know not yet why but I will not scupper this chance to reach out to our former allies.’ 

Z’kila raised one eyebrow. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually flirt with everyone.’ 

‘Perhaps not, but there is reason for such a belief to be popular. Mayhap she was critiquing your choice of attire. Regardless, I would have you with me to meet the Lord Commander. I would rather not have this first meeting with an Ishgardian official alone and he has apparently expressed great interest in meeting you in person.’ 

‘Primals I can defeat, dragons are another beast entirely,’ he answered idly, looking down at himself, more interested in what problem Alphinaud might have with his battle gear. The black cloth and leather combination skimmed his skin fairly closely but he could see no other issue with it. 

Alphinaud folded his arms. ‘It would be best not to assume the Lord Commander has an adversary in mind for you from the outset.’ 

Z’kila snorted. ‘I can think of very few other reasons anyone would be eager to meet me.’ 

‘Because you are a living hero?’ Alphinaud supplied with a curious tilt to his brow. Z’kila merely grimaced in response and scratched at a dot of dried Voidsent gore on his sleeve. ‘I believe it inefficient to make assumptions before our first meeting. They may cloud our judgement and lead to false impressions. The healer, what do you need her aid for?’ he added, glancing towards the door though she was long since gone. 

‘A side venture I’m exploring.’

He frowned. ‘What side venture?’ 

‘Warrior of Light and Scion I may be, but I am an adventurer first and foremost and you are not entitled to know my every business, Master Leveilleur,’ he bit back, sliding off his stool and refusing to acknowledge the look of hurt that glanced across the boy’s face. ‘I presume Minfilia needs to be notified of this development with Ishgard’s leader?’ 

‘Lord Commander. The Archbishop is the leader of the Holy See.’ 

‘Whatever. Let’s go, I would rather not be riding up through Coerthas into dusk tonight.’ 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which G'raha and Z'kila venture forth into Syrcus Tower alone together, uncover some secrets and break some rules like real adventurers.

Z’kila struck an impressive silhouette against the pale lilac backdrop of the twilight sky over Lake Silvertear. His long coat lifted gently with the breeze drifting across the water’s surface, dark and featureless. G’raha approached on weary feet, the weight of his thoughts like a burden to be carried on his shoulders. He came to stand alongside Z’kila and mimicked his stance, arms folded and feet planted wide. The mangled corpses of the Garlean airship and the father of dragons stood decaying in the middle of the lake, as it had done for longer than G’raha had been alive. Whatever had taken Z’kila’s attention away from Mor Dhona over the last few weeks was seemingly over, but now he spent every spare moment with his eyes on the lake. 

‘Are you expecting them to uncoil from one another and take flight?’ he asked, unable to keep his curiosity to himself a moment longer. 

‘Something like that,’ Z’kila murmured, fingers tapping idly on the leather of his sleeve to the same inaudible beat that had his tail swaying from side to side. ‘I’ve been asked to keep an eye on the dragon for-’ He cut himself off with a sigh and looked down at the rock beneath his feet.

‘…You can’t say?’ G’raha guessed. ‘The Scions like to keep that gag on you as much as they can.’ 

‘I haven’t been gagged as such,’ he protested. ‘The reason for the request is just…sensitive. And dull and meaningless, most like, but sensitive nonetheless. It’s all based on information no one south of the Observatorium should know.’ 

‘It involves Ishgard then?’ G’raha asked with a quirking grin. ‘It stands to reason, what with the wyrmking and all.’ 

Z’kila slid his gaze to G’raha’s, mouth set in an exasperated line. ‘I can neither confirm nor deny. Regardless of who or what involves, I know very little other than the specific request to watch the  _ Agrius. _ Something to do with Garlean airships approaching in the dead of night—what for, we don’t know.’ He paused, chewing on his lower lip. ‘Do you know what happened to the Isle of Val?’ 

Surprised by the sudden change in subject, G’raha lifted his eyes from his own thoughts to find Z’kila’s. ‘Other than it simply  _ vanished, _ I do not. Apparently Rammbroes’ call requesting my involvement here was one of the last to get through. Full glad am I that I agreed,’ he admitted with a grimace.

‘You aren’t…sad?’ 

‘Would you prefer me to be?’ he returned with more bite than intended. ‘I was as much an outcast there as I was in my tribe. There were good people there of course, and I grieve for them, but it wasn’t like this found family you have with the Scions.’ 

Z’kila glanced away, eyes returning to the lake. ‘Forgive me.’ 

G’raha dipped his chin and tightened his arms around himself. His head was so full of the Tower and the Emperor that there was simply no room to think about what had happened to the other Students. Eyes of red and blue were drawn towards the glowing beacon as they so often were. The silence stretched on and yet his mind was in such a whirl that he couldn’t hear it. 

‘Are you well?’ Z’kila asked, and G’raha jolted out of his own head with a flick of his ears. ‘If you aren’t  _ in _ the Tower you’re staring at the bloody thing.’ 

He stared because it was unlike anything that had ever come before it, and perhaps anything that would ever come after it. It was the heart of the most advanced civilisation this Star had ever seen, a symbol of progress and hope for a realm that expanded across the planet in almost its entirety. It was filled to the brim with ancient, advanced knowledge and technology that their great-great-great-grandchildren wouldn’t even have a hope of comprehending. But sometime in the distant future, when civilisation had been given a chance to catch up…perhaps someone  _ could _ comprehend it. 

And they wanted to seal the whole thing away. For good. To lose everything the Allagans had worked for in the name of keeping the realm safe. And while he could follow that logic, what if there was something in that Tower that could one day save the realm from some bigger unimaginable threat? By sealing it away with no intent to have it opened ever again, there was a very real chance they were dooming themselves. Not tomorrow, or even in a hundred years, mayhap, but one day that threat may come. 

‘I’m quite well,’ he answered, his vague answer and long hesitation giving Z’kila every reason to raise both eyebrows. 

Rather than question him further, however, Z’kila simply turned away from the wreckage in the lake and offered a small smile. ‘Shall we go and explore some? Without the eyes of the Ironworks and the Sons on our backs?’ 

G’raha’s eyes snapped up, attention shifting to his companion. ‘Now? Will they let us?’ 

Z’kila shrugged. ‘I was never very good at following orders. We’ll sneak by.’ He paused and tilted his head back at G’raha. ‘Unless you don’t feel like it?’ he teased with a toothy grin. 

  
  
  


Armed with both bow and daggers, the miqo’te pair sneaked their way up the path towards Syrcus Tower past gigas with their club-like arms and blades of sharp, scrap metal. Near the tunnel leading up to the door they stopped, hidden behind a cluster of petrified thistles while they waited for the guards to change shift. Settled crouching on their toes, balancing on fingertips, G’raha couldn’t help the little grin that crept across his mouth; in the deepening darkness of the night he felt as though he were on a real adventure to uncover unchartered lands. 

At his side Z’kila was eerily silent. Even his every breath was soft and lost in the whistling breeze. No words were shared but an entire conversation occurred with shared looks and shifts in expression alone. Breaths held as the evening’s guard made their way out of the tunnel, their footsteps echoing in the near silence. Shared glances of amusement at the soft griping carried on the air that their replacements hadn’t turned up. 

As soon as the Sons in their brown coats were three paces beyond the mouth of the tunnel, Z’kila urged G’raha forward with a jerk of his chin. On light toes they crept into the tunnel, the unyielding metallic ground providing little camouflage to their steps. Only a few paces in, the doors seemed further away than they ever had done and didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

‘ _ Go, go! _ ’ Z’kila whispered, urging G’raha on as the pair of them broke into as soft-footed a run as they could manage down the vast, echoing metal tunnel. If they were heard no one called out.

Inside the door they darted into the shadows of the pool, splashing in the shallows while they caught their breath. ‘We’ll need to head upstairs if we don’t want to be spotted,’ Z’kila said, one hand on the stone as he leant around to peer back down the tunnel. ‘This entire floor is visible from the door. Come.’ 

He offered out his hand. G’raha looked down at an instant before he curled his fingers around long, half-gloved ones, a sparking thrill in the pit of his stomach as they took off at a sprint towards the staircase.  _ This _ was how adventure was supposed to go,  _ this _ was how the tales described it; sneaking about with a comrade, running from spying eyes and exploring to one’s content. The rules and permissions and constant cross-referencing of information of the Sons and NOAH was nothing like adventure  _ should _ be. But this Tower, this night, was everything G’raha had hoped this entire expedition would be. 

The stone did little to soften their steps but at least they didn’t clang and echo like the metal of the tunnel. He paused at the top of the first set of stairs, gazing up at the grid of glyphs and yanking Z’kila to an uncomfortable halt. As much as he had been in here the last few weeks, there was so much to explore that he hadn’t been able to study anything in any real depth. ‘These glyphs, have they changed?’ he asked as Z’kila tugged insistently on his hand. 

‘They’re identical to the ones further up so we can look at those and find out.’ Z’kila pulled on G’raha’s hand with a wary glance back to the open doorway. G’raha pouted and followed with exaggerated reluctance, leaning back against every hurrying tug to his hand until his adventuring companion spluttered into exasperated laughter. ‘Raha, by the  _ Twelve- _ ’ 

G’raha’s mouth split into a mischievous smirk and he barked a short laugh, giving up the play and darting up the next set of stairs beside him. Fingers interwoven. 

Running didn’t last long with so many steps to climb and they managed only three sections at a run before they had to slow at the risk of wearing themselves out. While Z’kila had the brisker gait, quite used to such lengthy climbs with the stamina to show for it, he remained only a step ahead of G’raha. Palms stayed clasped close as they climbed, eyes cast skyward. They kept their voices low in this vast lower ring, the echo threatening to carry. While they knew they would get nothing other than slapped wrists should they be caught, it was more exciting to pretend the stakes were far higher. 

Panting with the effort of their haste and hushed conversation, they crested the top of the staircase to the second Lower Ring, as the levels had been so named, where Z’kila had faced the first of the Tower’s hostilities. Everything in these Lower Rings was surrounded by falling and pooling water, a roaring rush that went some way to masking their presence. Up here they were far out of sight of the doors and relaxed somewhat. 

G’raha released Z’kila’s hand and darted across the platform to the staircase at the other side leading up to another grid of glyphs. His companion followed, rummaging through an inner pocket of his coat. 

‘They haven’t changed,’ said Z’kila, flipping open his journal to a page near the middle. He pressed it into G’raha’s hands and looked up at the grid. ‘I don’t know if it’s a message or a cipher or a lock of some kind. If this is a door we couldn’t get it open.’

The glyphs that glowed the same soft blue as the tower’s exterior were of a simpler design than those simply etched into the stone. G’raha noted that Z’kila hadn’t had the chance to sketch those down but all of those he had drawn remained in the same positions on the grid. ‘So it had nothing to do with Amon or the Emperor being here…’ he mused. ‘The fact they’re still glowing indicates that the Tower can operate on its own without a keeper.’ 

‘I don’t know if ‘operate’ is the right word,’ Z’kila answered, glancing around. ‘What can it do by itself?’ 

‘Collect and store solar energy, if the oldest scriptures are to be believed.’ G’raha turned to flash a grin at Z’kila. ‘Twelve know how many magitek machina it could power on its own.’ 

‘…Do you still think they represent musical notes?’ 

‘I don’t know for certain.’ He handed back the journal and pulled out his own along with a sharpened stick of charcoal. He flipped to the page of the glyphs from the Labyrinth and compared them to the grid above. Not identical but the patterns were similar. ‘It could just be a script I’m unfamiliar with. Or shorthand, mayhap? Or merely decoration.’ He doubted these glyphs were nothing more than decorative; as lavish and opulent as this Allagan palace was, everything had a function. The ancient empire was as efficient as it was innovative. 

Z’kila stayed by his side and listened to his verbal musings as he examined the glyphs and copied them down as accurately as he could. He asked questions when G’raha fell silent, interested if not entirely comprehending everything he said. Silver eyes remained on his face while ears flicked and swivelled, alert for any possible danger potentially missed in his earlier excursion. 

The better part of a bell passed while G’raha tried to glean as much as he could from this grid of glyphs, but without proper context there was very little he could do with them. He offered a sigh. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted at length even though he had noted down every possibility he could think of in his journal. 

Z’kila hummed. ‘Well maybe it’s a step towards knowing.’ He gestured at the charcoal sketches on the page. ‘Whoever does figure it out might need those notes to do it.’ 

G’raha looked down at his journal. His companion may well be right; a scholar he was not but he had a decently clever brain in that pretty head. Playing his part to be a rung in the ladder of knowledge was all well and good but he yearned to see the fruition of his work. To see the fruition of the work of the many scholars before him and would come after him. He sighed again. 

‘Come on,’ said Z’kila, knocking into him gently with his shoulder. ‘It’s nicer upstairs.’ 

Tucking his book and charcoal away, G’raha followed half a pace behind. ‘We aren’t going to spend any time in the kitchens? It would save you from the stairs for a while longer.’ 

Z’kila paused. ‘Do you  _ want _ to spend time in the kitchens?’

‘No, they’re barren as far as interest and knowledge goes. A few devices that are most likely intriguing cooking machines but nothing within my realm of study. We can leave those to the Ironworks folk, I think. Shall we?’ He hopped up three steps ahead of Z’kila and led the way up the next set of stone staircases to the third Lower Ring where the adventuring party had faced the mythical Scylla. 

‘The stone is impressive but the crystal is far nicer, don’t you think?’ Z’kila asked as they made their way onto the latticed walkways, looking up to the circular platform where the architecture shifted to the more decorative blues and golds. G’raha hummed his agreement, though his eyes flitted between the pathways ahead of them. He had dipped into every room he could find access to over the last few weeks and crafted his own mental map of the place, but now couldn’t decide which he would like to examine more closely. 

In his periphery he caught Z’kila cock his head to one side, ears up, listening to the echo of G’raha’s noncommittal hum fall back from the crystal chambers above. When all fell quiet again he hummed himself, a longer, louder note. G’raha listened to the strange, harmonic echo glance off the jagged edges of the Tower’s interior walls. 

‘Those are some interesting acoustics,’ Z’kila murmured as the sound dropped off, quiet enough that he could have been talking to himself. He took the path leading upwards to the main stairway. The rooms down here forgotten, G’raha followed close on his heels. 

They stopped on one of the platforms separating the helix staircase, the first or second Central Ring, G’raha had stopped counting levels. Surrounded on all sides by gold-accented blue crystal, its sharp edges glimmering with the reflection of sourceless light. Looking up at the rings above, Z’kila hummed again, an eight-note tune that sounded lovely enough in his own voice to G’raha’s ears, but the returning echo was even more so. Hundreds, thousands of voices returning the same tune at times and beats just minutely shifted to create an entire choir.

‘…That cannot be incidental,’ G’raha said once the chorus faded some moments later. 

Z’kila nodded. ‘It certainly lends credit to your music note theory. The theatre is right at the top of the Tower beneath the precipice, can you imagine how the entire palace must have sounded just to have one singer up there? Or an entire orchestra, or whatever the Allagan equivalent might have been. That wasn’t a question,’ he added quickly, grinning, before G’raha could formulate a detailed response of the types of instruments scholars had found evidence of. 

G’raha pouted but had to concede that the sound must have been breathtaking. For a moment he could see the images from his dreams, of ghostly Allagans filling the Tower and bringing the palace alive with activity, with chatter, with music that resonated all the way down from the very top. 

For several long moments they stood in silence, eyes cast skywards, lost in their own individual imaginings of echoing sounds that hadn’t been heard for thousands of years. Then Z’kila took a breath and glanced down at his companion. ‘I found a library with a few display cases we couldn’t open. Had any luck there?’ 

‘A library?’ G’raha asked, distracted. 

‘The circular one with the tile art on the floor and all the books.’ 

Attention caught, G’raha glanced up at his companion with ears canted forward. Z’kila’s eyes met his with a shining glint. He had seen every room in this place he could find in the last weeks and not one of them matched that description. ‘Where?’ 

The corner of Z’kila’s mouth quirked and his gaze slid sideways in a beckoning glance. Then he turned on his heel, coat and tail swishing, and led the way up and beyond to the next Ring to the curving helix staircase of crystal. G’raha stayed close to his heels, his mind conjuring up imaginations of this room he had yet to see based on the vague descriptions Z’kila had offered him. He’d spent countless bells in this place. How could he not have found it for himself?

Somewhere between the second and third Central Rings the staircase began to branch out into three different pathways. The leftmost one would lead to an entirely empty drawing room, the central up to the theatre, and the rightmost to an entire section of the Tower with multiple quarters that had probably once been bedchambers. Z’kila took the left path, simply grinned in answer to the G’raha’s demanding questions and paused halfway to the great arched doorway of the drawing room. 

‘Where?’ G’raha asked, positively humming with impatience.

‘Down here,’ said Z’kila, peering over the edge of the walkway. Just ten or so fulms below was another path that led into another chamber set into a crystalline core of the Tower. The path extended around the edge of the outer wall but G’raha couldn’t see where it might connect. Perhaps it didn’t. How odd. 

With an encouraging tilt of his head, Z’kila crouched down to set his hand on the gilded edge of the walkway and hopped down, hanging from one arm for an instant before dropping the rest of the way. ‘Come along!’ he called up, smiling widely. 

G’raha mimicked his movement, swinging down onto the walkway below with an unnecessary flourish. 

The doors into this hidden room were simple and nondescript, but its interior was anything but. Gilded gold accentuating varying shades of blue across the tiled floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was a small space made to feel much larger by the maze of bookshelves as tall as the room itself. The books were all leather bound, without titles and  _ old. _ Older than any book anybody had ever laid eyes on before, kept from disintegrating from Allagan technologies beyond their ken. 

‘Once you’ve picked your jaw off the floor you might want to have a look at these,’ said Z’kila, his voice tinged with poorly-suppressed joy as he stepped between bookshelves. G’raha followed at a jog, gaze trying to be everywhere at once. He  _ needed _ to look at every single one of these tomes. The information they could contain…books from early Allag,  _ pre- _ Allag mayhap, before the invention of tomestones. His heart hopped and skipped within his chest, as eager to get into those pages as the rest of him. 

A glass display case in the corner presented a lineup of seven tomestones in varying shades of grey, their details glowing softly in bright red and cyan. Z’kila swept an arm towards them with a theatrical wave. ‘I am no librarian but I suspect these must be important if they’re locked behind glass?’ 

It took every onze of dignity and restraint for G’raha not to press his hands and face against the glass to take in every minute detail of these early tomestones. ‘Either their contents are important or they’re something of a historical curiosity,’ he said, breathless with sheer excitement. ‘Or both, mayhap. Must be both. They must have had thousands of them and they chose these.’ 

‘They’re also still glowing,’ Z’kila pointed out, leaning close to the glass at G’raha’s side. ‘Must mean they’re still working. No?’

‘Possibly.’ G’raha leant closer, his nose ilms from the glass. ‘Like pages, though, they could disintegrate as soon as we try to transcribe them.’ 

Z’kila straightened up. ‘I’m not sure if transcribing them is an option anytime soon, considering we’re supposed to be locking everything up in here. But we could… _ theoretically _ …salvage them for a later time? What do you think?’ 

‘Theoretically?’ G’raha echoed, forcing himself to lean away from the glass. 

He shrugged and stepped behind his scholarly companion. ‘Perhaps less theoretically than I suggest. But we could. We would be facing bopped noses if Rammbroes or Cid found out.’ Resting his chin between auburn ears, the length of his body was warm and solid against G’raha’s back, a strong presence in spite of his gangling physique. 

Though he remained out of his periphery G’raha lifted his eyes upward, a smile curling at the corners of his lips. ‘I’m sure these would be worth a fortune to your businesswoman but you will have to fight me for them. I assure you I will not let them go to some collector just because you can smile nicely.’ 

Z’kila chuckled, the rumble in his chest and throat vibrating against G’raha. ‘I know better than to expect you to. These are yours should you want them.’ 

‘…All of them?’ 

‘Why not? It would be a shame to lose their contents if the opportunity arises to have them transcribed safely, don’t you think?’ 

‘Since when did you care about their contents?’ G’raha teased. 

‘I don’t, but you do.’ 

He leant back into Z’kila’s presence, feeling encompassed by him even though he kept his hands away. His ears fluttered at the gesture, a dusting of pink blooming across his cheeks. ‘…Presuming we can even get into this case. If it’s of Allagan creation we can be certain that it won’t be easy if at all possible…’ 

Z’kila simply lifted one arm over G’raha’s shoulder and slid the front glass panel aside.

‘…You have unlocked it already?’

He snorted. ‘Do I look like somebody that could figure out an Allagan lock? I found it like this.’ A nudge with the tip of his nose to the back of G’raha’s head, a gesture just shy of a nuzzle. ‘I had to intrigue you enough to get you here. I told the same lie to the party on our sweep through the area to keep their grubby fingers off them.’ 

G’raha had no words to express the swell of gratitude that took root in his chest and pressed insistently against his ribcage. ‘Truly, the promise of ancient tomes and tomestones would have been enough…’ he mumbled, voice thick with emotion. ‘Thank you for your thoughtfulness. They may prove fairly useless in the greater scheme of things but they are priceless treasures regardless.’ 

‘How very unscholarly of you,’ Z’kila joked, bumping him with his hip as he stepped away. ‘I was under the impression that  _ all _ knowledge had use. Might these books be of some use too? Though I concede they might be harder to sneak out and hide in our little poky tent.’

There was also every possibility that they would crumble to dust as soon as they were plucked from their shelves. It was nothing short of miraculous that they were still here at all, and whatever technologies were used to preserve them no longer existed. G’raha looked over the vast number of looming bookcases, once again feeling the weight of all this ancient and advanced knowledge on the brink of being lost as soon as the Tower doors closed for the last time almost unbearably heavy on his shoulders. Z’kila’s grin faded when he caught his expression. 

‘Listen, if they figured all this out then so can we,’ Z’kila said, waving around the room. ‘I don’t know how many generations it will take, but we will get there given time.’ 

‘…But we’re setting ourselves back so much by losing it all…’ 

His words were met with a sympathetic grimace, an expression of someone that didn’t quite understand the magnitude of his grief but wanted to soothe it nonetheless. ‘You heard Cid. The current state of the Star isn’t ready for what all of this and more could mean.’

‘I know that,’ G’raha said bitterly. ‘But I also know what danger  _ not knowing _ can be.’ He heaved a great sigh and pulled a scrap of cloth from his pack to begin the process of retrieving the tomestones from their case, wrapping each of them up carefully before packing them away. Z’kila’s gaze burned on his back. ‘I just wish there was a way to…maybe only seal it temporarily. Keep the realm safe while we “aren’t ready” or whatever but so that it isn’t lost for eternity,’ he went on, pouting at the last of the tomestones and well aware how petulant he sounded. 

‘Mhm…’ Z’kila responded. ‘And how do you suggest we do that?’ 

G’raha shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He made to stalk out of the library, ears lowered, unable to bear being in the room any longer surrounded by hundreds, possibly thousands of books that neither he nor anyone else would ever get to read. ‘It turns out there seems to be very little I  _ do _ know,’ he added, throwing the words over his shoulder with a sardonic grin. 

Z’kila caught him by the hand and pulled him back, weaving their fingers and pressing their palms together. He pressed close and gave a playful nip to an auburn ear. ‘We’re the first people in here for five thousand years, aren’t we? There’ll be no one else that can lay claim to a feat like that.’ They left the library seven tomestones emptier than when they had walked in and returned to the vast, cavernous pathways and staircases at the centre of the Tower. 

‘There must be several tomes’ worth of descriptions of this place alone,’ Z’kila went on, a smile returning to his mouth. ‘You could make a fortune.’ 

That was about the furthest concern from G’raha’s mine but the attempt to cheer him up brought a reluctant curling to his lips. ‘There is such a thing as being concerned for the fate of knowledge in and of itself with _ out _ the implication of one’s own success regarding it,’ he pointed out, exasperated but unable to find much annoyance for his companion. 

‘Yes, well, I don’t pretend to be very good at thinking beyond myself,’ said Z’kila, flashing his teeth in a grin. 

G’raha snorted softly at that. 

Rather than attempt to jump the ten fulms back up to the walkways above, Z’kila followed the path out of the library that curved around the edge of the outer wall. It led to a the most confusing spiral of narrow staircases leading back to the central stairway, branching off at strange angles and curving back on itself in several places for no discernible reason before they found themselves near the very summit of the Tower. No wonder he hadn’t found that old library by himself. Z’kila’s adventuring party must have combed the place ilm by ilm to find it. 

A brief mapping of the drawing room proved a pleasant enough distraction from the leaden weight of the books in G’raha’s mind. It was almost entirely empty and nothing like any drawing room he had ever seen or read about before, and without any windows to the outside the filtering grey, predawn light through the crystalline ceiling created the ambiance of being just beneath the surface of a lake. The gold gilding along the curved walls even gave the impression of distant fish. 

The sleeping quarters were fun to examine and try to guess which room was the Emperor’s and who else might have had a room up here. There were many, many rooms here holding nothing that might resemble a bed. Some might have been sitting rooms outside of bedrooms. There was nothing in the architecture of furniture to suggest either way but the pair of them had fun trying to guess. 

‘Such opulence is still foreign to me,’ Z’kila admitted as they headed back to the central stairway. ‘I grew up sleeping in a straw hut.’ 

‘Much the same,’ said G’raha, slipping a hand into his pack to ensure that the tomestones were still there, still wrapped up and safe. ‘Though perhaps not straw. I never really grew used to the Isle of Val, as much as I tried, but this place is…different. Less opulent and more…interesting.’

‘ _ Less _ opulent?’ Z’kila repeated, glancing about with a furrow between his eyebrows. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ 

A poor choice of words perhaps, G’raha thought with a private grimace. Syrcus Tower was certainly opulent but equal parts alien and familiar at the same time. An opinion perhaps not shared by his adventuring companion, nor by the rest of NOAH and the Sons. ‘Perhaps we should head back down before they notice we’re gone,’ he said, as eager to change the subject as he was reluctant to leave. 

‘We won’t make it out before midmorning at this point,’ Z’kila argued. ‘They’ll know we’re gone. Let’s watch the sunrise from the top of the tallest tower outside of Ishgard.’ He smiled, all full lips and crinkled eyes. ‘Not many have seen that sight in millennia.’ 

_ And very few ever will again, _ G’raha couldn’t help but supply to himself, his ears lowering a fraction before he took Z’kila’s hand. 

The sky above was a gradient of pastel pinks and golds and G’raha was struck not for the first time with the feeling that he was close enough to the heavens that he could simply reach out and touch them. Z’kila spent a moment staring at the throne—or rather, the space just in front of it where the Void portal had appeared, sucked in Unei, Doga and Nero, and then disappeared without a trace. The platform was covered in machina and devices belonging to the Ironworks working on reopening that portal but so far without success. 

With some roguish manoeuvres Z’kila hopped over the expanse of water and hauled himself up to the seat of Xande’s throne, turned to reach down and help G’raha make the leap as well just to find him already clutching the edge. His smile barely suppressed, he swung his legs over the seat and they sat side by side, their feet dangling several fulms over the water below. 

‘If I didn’t feel small and insignificant before…’ he mused, eyeing the great, bulking throne rising around them that could quite easily sit eight or more regular sized people. 

G’raha snorted. ‘You are one of the very few people that would deign to consider the Warrior of Light insignificant.’ 

‘It’s all relative,’ Z’kila shrugged. ‘Even if I didn’t manage to save the world then some part of it would survive. A tiny part, mayhap, but it would survive and evolve. The world wouldn’t  _ end _ it would just be…different.’ 

He had to consider that. The resurrected Xande had brought about the end of the greatest civilised empire in the Star had ever seen, a result of Amon’s attempts to revive a stagnating civilisation. Dalamud sent up containing the elder primal Bahamut, concentrating the sun’s energies straight into this very Tower only for it to be swallowed up by the resulting calamitous earthquake. An end to the world as the Allagans knew it. And yet here they were, sitting atop that same emperor’s throne, breaths and heartbeats strong in spite of the thin air, watching the first glimpse of the same sun peek over the horizon. Z’kila’s palm warm against his.

‘…Perhaps you aren’t wrong,’ he murmured. 

As his side Z’kila chuckled softly. ‘I often am not and yet people are always surprised.’ 

But G’raha bit his lip. Five thousand years Eorzea’s landscape had been without this remarkable beacon of hope, lost to a calamity, and brought back just five years ago by another. ‘Don’t you think…’ he began, trailing off as he leant his tired head on Z’kila’s shoulder. Beginning again: ‘Don’t you think, given the chance, we should try to save something when someone else failed?’ 

Z’kila was still and silent a moment before he rested his head atop G’raha’s. ‘Given the chance, mayhap. Depends on associated risks involved, no?’

‘…What if you could save it without risk?’ 

Another beat of silence. ‘Then I suppose so. We should try. But I don’t know how.’ 

_ Neither do I,  _ G’raha lamented, ears and mouth turned down as the golden light of the sun washed over the landscape of Mor Dhona, caught in crystallised stasis, and bid welcome to a new day. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which G'raha allows himself a day off and finds himself in the market of Revenant's Toll buying oil. For his bow, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes explicit sexual content between two men. If that isn't your thing, feel free to skip this one!

It was a treat indeed to wake up to the quiet, merry singing of a companion. When G’raha emerged from his tent that morning he found the campfire abuzz with members of the Sons and the Ironworks readying themselves for breakfast before their work began. Perched on a tower of precariously stacked crates Z’kila was dressed in his dark battle gear, all cloth and leather, with a lyre in his grasp. Long elegant fingers danced along the strings while he sang along to the same upbeat melody. G’raha had heard him sing before, a decent voice even while entirely drunk but sober he was impressive. He could hold his notes and reach pitches far out of reach of most singers. 

He took a seat nearby and awaited his portion of the food, listening contently. This was no tavern or campfire song but something equally bright and merry, something more subtle with meanings hidden behind the lyrics. The sun was still low in the sky to the east, promising a fair day. Z’kila greeted him with a small smile and continued his song. Even Cid seemed to be in decent spirits which indicated that some progress was being made on the process of reopening the portal. 

‘Did you wake up in a good mood?’ G’raha asked as the last few notes plucked along the lyre and the final note trailed off. He accepted his bowl of porridge and chatter started up around them again now that the music had ended. 

‘I woke up with something to  _ do, _ which always marks a decent day.’

‘Is it something you can share or no?’ He didn’t expect much of an answer and indeed he didn’t receive one, a coy smile taking over Z’kila’s lips as his eyes darted out to the carcass of the airship in the middle of the lake before darting back again. G’raha tried to suppress his amusement by busying himself with his breakfast. For as much as the Warrior of Light liked to complain about everything he was ever asked to do, he whined five times louder when he went too long with nothing to do. 

Z’kila snagged a chunk of bread from the plate being offered around and tore into it as he slid down from the crates and disappeared back into the tent. He returned as G’raha was scraping his wooden bowl clean, his lyre exchanged for a pair of wicked daggers shining in his belt. 

‘Off to save the world again?’ one of the Sons called out to him, the hearty mood spreading. 

‘As always,’ Z’kila chimed back as he headed for the chocobos’ shelter, glancing back over his shoulder to offer a farewell smile to G’raha. A brief, silent exchange before he turned his back. 

G’raha sat by the fire with the empty bowl in his lap and chewed on his lower lip while everyone else around him began clearing up and setting off for the Tower or their various other research in the surrounding area. Normally he would join those heading back up to the summit without a second thought, intrigued by its interior and desperate to document as much of it as he could before they got the portal open again. But today, while he still felt that gravitational draw to the Tower, he had grown so accustomed to Z’kila’s company on every excursion that he dreaded going in there as much as he yearned to keep exploring. 

The decision to head into Revenant’s Toll instead was an easy one, to force his legs to actually carry him there less so. Every step in the opposite direction to the Tower was like fighting a riptide. With his brow furrowed and jaw set, G’raha put his head down and forged on—if Z’kila could overcome both primals and an Allagan creation designed to siphon the power of  _ multitudes _ of them, he could walk up a damn hill to the town without looking back. 

Revenant’s Toll’s walls were growing high, still surrounded by wooden scaffolding but tall and opaque enough to hide the Tower from view and it eased the yearning pull somewhat. Of the people milling around the aetheryte the adventurers were the easiest to identify in their mismatched leather, chain and plate armour. He wondered how many of them had been a part of Z’kila’s expeditions into the Labyrinth and the Tower. The lalafell gladiator or the elezen lancer, perhaps? How many of them had been or would be invited through the portal? There was a group of five heading out of the western gate with their belongings on their backs and G’raha watched them go, overtaken momentarily by the desire to follow. To go wherever his fancy took him and belong nowhere, his companions the only constant.

He shook his head and headed up the slope to the market. A rare treat for him to be away from his books, G’raha allowed himself the time to peruse the wares and treat himself to a miq’abob at midday while he looked over the arrows on display on the fletcher’s table. 

‘A marksman, are ye?’ she asked, eyeing the bow on his back. ‘That bow o’ yers looks like it’s seen better days. Can I tempt you to a new one?’

‘This one is fine, thank you,’ G’raha replied, struggling to keep the offence off his expression. His bow had served him well ever since he had chosen to leave his tribe and had no intention to discard it. 

‘Ye sure? Dark cedarwood, very stiff but not at all brittle. Strung just this morning.’ 

‘It sounds most impressive but no thank you. Mine is just fine.’ There was an interesting set of arrows just behind her with twisted fletching and curved iron heads. Those were more tempting than her cedarwood bow by far and likely had a price to match their quality. He couldn’t very well justify spending a fortune on arrows when he had no need for something so fancy or brutal. 

‘How about some oil for it then?’ she went on, ignoring the subject of his gaze entirely and shoving a small vial of amber liquid under his nose. ‘Keep those limbs subtle and help keep it in use longer. What do ye think?’ 

G’raha blinked. ‘Oil?’ he echoed dumbly, his mind catapulted back to the hospital wing in the Scion headquarters when he fumbled along the shelves of lotions, potions and flasks for something to use with Z’kila’s mouth on his neck and his hips between his thighs. 

‘Aye, oil,’ she said. ‘Useful for all sorts o’ things. The haft of a lance, any kind o’ blade. Completely harmless on the body too. Will keep that bow nice and young for years yet, I can promise ye that. Can a tempt ye with it? Only a handful o’ gil.’ 

‘…Alright,’ G’raha said, reaching for his coin purse, though it wasn’t his bow he had in mind for it. 

The Ironworks crew and a good portion of the Sons were missing when he returned to the camp later in the day, still up at the top of the Tower no doubt, but there was still a buzz of activity. With the morning and some bells of the afternoon already gone, G’raha was in a mind to retreat to his tent to collect his thoughts on Syrcus Tower and begin compiling a cohesive thesis. He nodded his greeting to the few researchers that spotted his return and ducked through the flap of his tent. 

The sight that greeted him had his tail curling and made his ears stand to attention. 

‘Close the flap,’ said Z’kila, glancing over his shoulder with a flash of silver. The canvas fell from G’raha’s fingers, shutting out the rest of the world. In the middle of the afternoon while activity buzzed around the rest of the camp all around them, Z’kila lay on his front across his cot entirely naked. A bronze tail swished and curled over his legs, drawing attention to his round, toned buttocks—intentionally or otherwise. 

‘I didn’t think I’d ever find you lounging over a book,’ G’raha commented, setting his bow and quiver down in the corner of their tent beside Z’kila’s. 

Z’kila turned a page. ‘Considering I spent the morning climbing to the top of the  _ Agrius _ fighting off dragonkin and Garlean airships both, I think I deserve an afternoon of respite.’ 

He spoke languidly but there was a hint of tension in his voice that spoke of a grueling excursion. Between the resting, the book and his nakedness, it was clear he needed rest for more than just his body. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ G’raha asked at length, taking a measured step into the middle of the tent. 

‘More or less,’ Z’kila said with a grimace and left it at that. ‘I thought you would be in the Tower again but Rammbroes said you headed up to Revenant’s Toll right after breakfast. Enjoy the market?’ 

‘It was a change of pace.’ Entirely distracted, G’raha’s eyes appraised the length of his back: the lines of his shoulder blades, the light impression of ribs, the dip of his spine leading down into a full, shining bronze tail over a rather tempting rear, the long stretch of both legs. The vial of oil burned hot in his pocket. ‘…Is there a reason you’re undressed? What if someone walked in on you?’

Z’kila shrugged. ‘They’d get an eyeful. If someone wants to invade our private space then whatever they find is entirely their own fault.’ 

A smirk quirked at one corner of G’raha’s mouth. Whether he meant it to or not, Z’kila’s words certainly sounded like an invitation. Besides, he had been promised an occasion where he could do as he liked to this beautiful, delicate-looking man. He set one knee on the edge of Z’kila’s cot and swung the other over the straddle his hips, hovering over his thighs with both hands resting on the small of his back. 

Watching him over his shoulder, one of Z’kila’s silver eyes followed each and every movement. ‘And what might you be doing?’ he asked, voice coloured with amusement. His tail curled up and around G’raha’s leg, tightening enticingly. 

‘Collecting a promise given last time.’ He leant down close to murmur against warm skin, marred and scarred by endless battles. Fingers tracing his sides, he started at the base of his tail and pressed his mouth to his spine. Slow kisses with light presses of the tip of his tongue, he made his way up Z’kila’s back one ilm at a time. ‘What book caught your interest then?’

‘…One of yours. Allagan fairytales and children’s stories.’ 

‘Hm.’ Another lingering kiss. ‘Are you enjoying them?’ 

‘Strangely, I can’t really focus anymore,’ Z’kila replied with a huffing laugh. He snapped the book closed and set it on the ground beside the cot. Although he made to turn over, G’raha set his hands on both of his shoulders and set his weight on them. 

Pressing his nose into soft hair at the nape of his neck, G’raha whispered. ‘No no. You promised me I could do as I liked to you. I intend to hold you to that.’ A kiss to the very top of his spine before he returned to his place midway up his back, intent on showering him with sensation and affection. Z’kila rumbled beneath him, a sound partway between a purr and a growl, and stretched out beneath him like a perfectly content housecat. Arms came up to pillow his head. 

‘Very well,’ he said, relaxing under G’raha’s touch. ‘I am yours to do with what you will.’ 

G’raha purred against his skin, revelling in the subtle twitching of muscles in his back. Slowly he made his way up towards Z’kila’s neck, pressing the length of himself against his taller lover. At his shoulders he nipped small biting kisses into his neck. His tail flicked back and forth as Z’kila let his head fall to one side, offering him entire access to all the vulnerable spots of his neck. The temptation to bite was almost overwhelming, to sink his teeth into that fragile skin and leave a mark to last for weeks. 

Instead he pressed his hips into Z’kila’s rear, his interest evident through the layers of his smalls and trousers. Z’kila met him halfway, pushing back against the length of him and drawing out a deep, possessive groan. The urge to bite intensified and he latched onto the junction of his neck and shoulder, sucking a bruising mark into his skin instead. Z’kila twitched and flinched, a soft exhale indicating the pinpricking pain. 

Hips rolled and snapped against pliant flesh, desperate as G’raha was to be rid of the layers between them and simply get  _ inside. _ The friction was minimal, at once easing the fire and stoking it. His hands were too busy snaking under Z’kila’s chest to fix the issue, fingers seeking out pebbling nipples to circle, pinch and play. 

Breaths came raggedly, the anticipation and arousal alone having them both near enough panting. G’raha took the pointed tip of one bronze ear lightly between his teeth and tugged. Z’kila hissed, his head jerked back by the sensitivity of his ear and silver eyes pressed shut against the onslaught of sensation. 

A shadow passed across the wall of the tent and they froze, not even breathing as they watched the shadow linger on the canvas right beside the cot. Here they were, in a less than soundproof tent in the middle of a busy camp in the middle of a bright afternoon. Cid and Rammbroes’ voices remained muffled but audible through the canvas though their words were entirely lost on a pair of aroused and bloodless minds. G’raha’s heart stuttered over its galloping beat, Z’kila’s ear still between his teeth as he watched the swaying shadow looming above them. 

‘…Of course they have to have their conversation here,’ Z’kila mumbled, his voice strained and breathless. 

G’raha hushed him under his breath, freeing one hand to press over his mouth. In moments, while he willed the two outside to move on, Z’kila’s face turned hot under his grasp. 

They were a flimsy sheet of canvas away from being discovered. Two heartbeats raced and stuttered at the proximity of others, of others that had no idea of the extent of their relationship. And below him Z’kila shifted, fidgeting, subtle movements that gave away his attempts to rut against the cot beneath him with G’raha’s weight on his back. Blood roared in his ears. 

An idea sprang to mind. Perhaps not a good one but an idea nonetheless.

G’raha shifted his weight onto one elbow, his palm still pressed over Z’kila’s mouth. With his free hand he pulled the vial of oil from his inner pocket and fumbled the cork out of it with his thumb. Reaching down, he dribbled a small amount down the cleft of his buttocks. Z’kila jerked with a muffled sound, a puff of air against G’raha’s hand. ‘Shh,’ he whispered, releasing his ear’s tip to nuzzle against its base. ‘Don’t let them catch us.’ 

The angle was awkward, his weight resting on one hip at Z’kila’s side while he kept one hand clamped over his mouth and the other traced teasing lines up and down across his entrance, applying light pressure but not pushing in yet. G’raha’s gaze remained on the shadows outside, the buzz of conversation meaningless in his ears. Z’kila was still, silent save for the quiet huffing breaths through his nose. He twitched under each pass of dexterous fingers and locked G’raha in a daring stare out of the corner of his eye. 

Pressing a kiss to his shoulder, G’raha pushed two fingers inside. Z’kila jolted with a short, muffled groan, head thrown back and tail standing on end. Weeks back when their positions were reversed, Z’kila had been so gentle with him, treating his body like some delicate and fragile artifact. G’raha was too impatient to return that level of care, too eager to draw out as many noises to muffle as he could. Bronze ears fluttered down to press against hair of the same colour as those fingers started to twist and spread to stretch and open him up. 

‘Think you can keep silent?’ he whispered, breath ghosting against the edge of an ear. Z’kila shivered and peered through one hooded eye, glazed over with a heady mix of arousal, want and fear. The shadows were not moving. The tones of their voices had turned serious. 

With a jerk of his head Z’kila caught two fingers gently between his teeth before he drew them in with sensual caresses of a hot, wet tongue. 

A throb of need so intense it bordered on pain pulsed straight through G’raha’s groin with every beat of his pulse. Sliding his fingers free, he made a grab for his belt and yanked it loose. He clawed his waistband down alongside his smalls just enough to free himself, barely remembering to coat himself in oil through the haze of  _ want _ before the slow, agonising pleasure of the initial press and penetration. 

Z’kila’s tail battered against his side and he sucked hard on those two fingers at the burning stretch, remaining entirely silent. Not so much as a breath. G’raha’s head swam and his vision blurred with the intense tight heat encompassing him ilm by ilm. His fingers pressed down on a pliant tongue and he caught himself on his other hand, forehead pressed between shoulder blades, breath held to keep any sounds of his own from escaping. But he didn’t stop, unable to stop the slow slide deep inside until he was hilted. 

G’raha released a shaky breath, as silent as he could manage gusting across Z’kila’s tense back. His lover shivered beneath him, a thin sheen of sweat forming across both of them with the effort of keeping still, of keeping quiet. Everything, the Star, the universe, time from the beginning until the end seemed to centre on the overwhelmingly glorious connection of their bodies. He felt less man than beast, fighting fang and claw against the simple driving instinct to rut, mate,  _ fuck, _ nearby ears be  _ damned. _

It was a losing battle. Z’kila was shifting subtly beneath him, grinding his hips back against him and providing a maddeningly minute level of friction that did nothing save stoke the flames of need higher, hotter. 

No, G’raha could not keep still; but he could keep quiet. With a flash of snarling teeth and the rumble of a voiceless growl, he pulled his fingers free of his lover’s tempting mouth and gripped his jaw. Rutting deep and strong against his rear, he forced Z’kila’s back to arch into the bedroll as he pulled his head round to cover his slick lips with his own in a messy, dominating kiss that swallowed a series of desperate whimpers. 

He couldn’t stop the slow rolling withdrawal and return of his hips that made no sound except for the huff of breath forced from his lover’s chest with each thrust, warm in his mouth and tasting exactly of  _ Kila. _ G’raha took advantage of his subservience and filled his mouth with his tongue, tracing every edge, tasting every corner, retreating and pushing back in, a filthy mimicry of the motions of his member. The fabric of the bedroll rustled and tore in near-silent sounds as Z’kila clawed and fisted into the material. His tail continued to thump between the cot and G’raha’s side. 

A glance up—the shadows had vanished, along with their accompanying conversation without either of their notice. He released Z’kila’s mouth with a sharp nip to his lower lip and moved to one flattened ear. ‘ _ Don’t make a sound… _ ’ he breathed against him, lips brushing over one sensitive edge. Z’kila buried his face in one arm and nodded, fists clenched into the bedroll. G’raha covered one with his own, entwining their fingers in a grounding comfort, and braced himself with the other tangled into bronze locks. Forcing his head down onto his own arm and the cot beneath. 

Their shared tent wasn’t in the middle of the camp but neither was it malms away; ambient chatter, clattering, shouted orders, and footsteps of various speeds, heaviness, pace length surrounded them in rises and lulls. Shadows glanced off their canvas walls. Unaware of what was going on inside—at least G’raha hoped no one was aware. Somewhat. The beastly, instinctive part of him wanted every eye on the Star to see him taking and claiming their hero, their Warrior of Light. He railed into the pliant, yielding man beneath him as quietly as the creaking cot and Z’kila’s wheezing breaths would allow. He blew damp hair from his eyes and admired the deep flush spreading slowly in uneven splotches from the back of his neck across his shoulders. 

With his hips pressed into the cot Z’kila went untouched, every thrust pushing his wheezes close and closer to helpless mewling. G’raha had to slow his thrusts down to deep grinding before he threw himself over the edge before he was willing for this end. As easy as it would be to finish off his lover with hand or mouth, he was determined to send him there untouched. 

He let up the pressure on his lover’s head and took his ear into his mouth again, biting down hard to draw out a muted yelp and pulled back his head so he could mewl to the heavens. Or at least the roof of their tent. 

‘Don’t you… _ dare _ stop,’ Z’kila moaned around panting breaths. 

The responding words lost their way from brain to lips so G’raha simply growled in response. Withdrawing entirely, he relished the plaintive moan and pout it earned him before he hauled Z’kila’s hips up from the cot. Braced on knees and elbows he made a pretty sight with his tail curled elegantly over his back out of the way. He glanced back over his shoulder with an expression that was both demure and alluring, the slight quirk of his lips almost shy. G’raha ran one hand up his spine from the base of his tail all the way to his neck, circling it with firm fingers to pull his head up and back. 

He pushed back in with one bruising thrust. Z’kila choked on a low groan, his spine forced into a shallow backwards curve. G’raha covered his mouth again, a feral grin taking over his face as he anchored himself to Z’kila’s shoulder and loomed over him. He struck a merciless pace and knew from the outset he wouldn’t be able to stop until he found his end. ‘No touching,’ he managed to growl to Z’kila below him over the repeated smacking of hips against flesh. 

Words were beyond both of them after that. G’raha’s clothes stuck to his sweating skin in the most uncomfortable ways and he regretted not having the patience to divest himself of them before this started but he couldn’t do anything about it now. His hair was falling out of its braid and sticking to his face, his neck, damp across his forehead. Not once did he look away from Z’kila’s eyes, gazing up at him, pleading through the haze and sending G’raha ever closer to his own end. 

The coil wound tight in his gut. He did everything he could to stave off the impending, inevitable orgasm for as long as possible; Z’kila was close. It was in every twitch, jerk and clench of his body. Every muffled moan, groan and mewl. So close G’raha could  _ taste _ it. 

But he couldn’t last—not with the way Z’kila was looking at him, not with the ripple of soft flesh under his every thrust, not with the sounds he was making or the way he tightened around him as though trying to keep him from leaving. Blinding and deafening as the crashing wave of bliss was, he clawed at Z’kila’s hip to keep moving, thrusting, rutting, staggered and jerking he was even as he bit down hard into the back of his shoulder to muffle the loud moan that escaped him, reducing it to a broken growl. 

As the high began to fade he became aware of the taste of iron on his tongue. But Z’kila was shivering, shuddering and biting into the softer flesh of G’raha’s palm. So he pushed through the tingle of oversensitivity, straightened up and shifted his angle just so to abuse the right spot with steadier snaps of his hips.

Z’kila froze, even his breath, every muscle rigidly tense. He clamped down on G’raha to the point of pain. He fell silently over the edge, eyes shut tight, his body convulsing without a sound as he spent across the bedroll below. G’raha draped himself across his back, one arm encircling his chest to hold him close through the intensity of his end while he peppered kisses across his shoulders and soothed the bleeding bite mark with his tongue. Even when Z’kila finally released his breath and panted with the afterglow he was reluctant to withdraw and leave him empty. Though he was softening, the heat remained pleasant. Almost a comfort. 

Lethargically reaching down for the bedroll, G’raha tugged it out from Z’kila’s tight grip and swept it to the floor. They could worry about cleaning it later, or else share the other for the night. His lover collapsed beneath him on the uncomfortably bare cot, dragging G’raha with him. At least it was clean. He winced as he pulled away, partly in sympathy with the other’s flinch of discomfort as well as the sudden chill. 

He lay beside him, pressed close on the narrow cot. ‘You’re alright?’ he whispered, combing dark hair from his flushed face. ‘Was I too much?’

Z’kila said nothing, looking up at him with his shining silver gaze and rolled to face him, wrapping both arms around him and drawing him tightly to his chest into a searing, desperate kiss that had their hearts racing all over again before they had a chance to calm. Legs and tails twined together, arms wrapped around backs and fingers tangled into hair. So close they were difficult to define as separate entities. They really should get cleaned up; but when he was exactly where he wanted to be such a thing seemed infinitely more difficult to do. 

‘Never too much,’ Z’kila answered in a husky whisper after many long moments of simple touch, a small smile on his lips. 

Later, Twelve knew how long, once they were able to keep their hands to themselves and look away from one another for longer than an instant, they scrabbled together a half-decent clean up attempt and G’raha divested himself of his sweat-soaked garments and released his hair from the remnants of its braid to lie bare with Z’kila in the comfort of the other cot. The air was starting to cool but neither cared. Z’kila lay on his front with his book of fairytales before him. Half-draped over him was G’raha, his head resting in the dip of his lower back while fingertips traced nonsense patterns into the white scars standing stark against olive skin. 

‘Which one are you reading?’ he asked through a yawn. 

‘The one about sea sirens that aren’t on the sea. Air sirens? Space sirens?’ He shrugged. ‘Glad I didn’t run into any of those in the Labyrinth or the Tower.’ 

‘Even the Warrior of Light would succumb to such temptation?’ G’raha teased, tracing close to the rise of his behind and suppressing a grin at the way his cheeks twitched under the feather-light touch until a bronze tail smacked him across the face. 

‘According to the songs the Warrior of Light succumbs to far lesser temptation,’ Z’kila went on. ‘The most common ones go on about how I’ll bed anything with a pulse if it so much as flutters its eyelashes at me.’ 

‘…Isn’t that true?’ 

Another shrug and a grin flashed over his shoulder. ‘Used to be. Recently I’ve found myself with a more than willing redhead to keep me warm at night in the middle of nowhere so I see little reason to notice any fluttering eyelashes from anywhere else.’ 

G’raha hummed and tried to hide his smile by pressing a kiss to the base of his tail. For a time they settled into comfortable silence, the rustle of turning pages accenting the activity outside. The afternoon was dipping into evening, long shadows cast up the wall of the tent. After a while he murmured, ‘As much as I wish for the safe return of the others, a most selfish part of me wishes the portal will remain difficult to open.’ 

‘I’m sorry about the Tower.’ Z’kila’s tail came up to brush the length of his side. ‘It’s been one hell of an adventure though, no?’ 

‘Indeed. One I would rather never ended.’ 

‘It hasn’t ended yet. Stop pouting.’ 

‘You don’t know that I’m pouting.’ 

‘You pout a lot.’ 

G’raha huffed his breath across Z’kila’s rear and snickered at the way his cheeks jumped again. He was reminded of their first encounter at the doors of the Tower, the firm flesh in his hands as he took him down his throat and equally of the desire he’d had at the time to sink his teeth into it. So he did. 

‘ _ Ow! _ ’ Z’kila jumped and twisted to stare at him, brow furrowed in an amusing combination of indignation and bafflement. G’raha did a poor job of hiding his grin against his skin, eyes sparkling back at him. ‘You are far too eager to use those teeth of yours,’ he said, one corner of his mouth quirking in a hint of a grin. 

He scoffed. ‘That was barely even a bite.’ 

‘And what about the blood dripping down my shoulder? Was that barely a bite too?’ 

‘It is not  _ dripping- _ ’

A tap to the flap of their tent shut them both up. Faces snapped round to the looming shadow hovering just outside, the height and breadth of a roegadyn. ‘You both feeling alright?’ came Biggs’ voice as they watched the shadow lift its arm to rub at the back of its head. ‘Ye’ve been in there most of the day.’

Z’kila and G’raha shared a glance and a smirk. ‘I pulled a muscle this morning,’ Z’kila called back, closing his book and setting it on top of one of the tome towers. ‘G’raha’s been looking after me.’ 

A pause. ‘Which muscle?’ Biggs grumbled, voice low like they weren’t supposed to hear him. G’raha choked on a laugh and had to smother himself in Z’kila’s back to keep it in. ‘They’re going to be ready to hand out supper soon if either of you want to join us.’ Then he shuffled away before either of them could respond. A moment passed before they could bring themselves to speak. 

‘…I think we may have been discovered,’ Z’kila said into his arm around a nervous chuckle. 

‘They suspect, they don’t  _ know. _ ’ G’raha sat up and stretched, groaning as his joints popped. ‘Any two people in close proximity for any length of time are going to be subjected to rumours and suspicion. Did you want any supper?’ 

‘I would. I missed lunchoen.’ He grinned. ‘Are you offering to bring me a portion?’ 

‘Best not strain that pulled muscle of yours, hm?’ G’raha smirked and leant over to press a kiss to the bruising, bleeding bite mark on the back of his shoulder before standing to find his clothes. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the portal to the World of Darkness is finally opened and the Warrior of Light prepares for a battle he cannot possibly predict.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Aryun and thorinoakenbutt for letting me reference your lovely WoLs in this chapter! They were a delight to introduce and I hope I've done them justice ♥ Aulani's beautiful WoL also returns for this one!
> 
> This chapter includes explicit content between two men, so feel free to skip the ending if that's not your thing!

Wakefulness brought with it a sharp sting to Z’kila’s shoulder. He tried to ignore it at first, every limb tightening around the warm body pressed close to him. There was barely an ilm of space to spare on the cot on G’raha’s side of the tent and he didn’t care one whit; the heart beating in time against his own was almost hypnotic in its gentle _thump-thump_ ing in his ears, warm and moist breath ghosting across his neck so tangible and yet not that he wanted to wrap himself around this one person on a Star of millions and never let go, just to prove to himself that he was real. 

But his shoulder ached and stung. Opening one eye a crack with an annoyed huff, he twisted to try and glimpse the cause. A flash of dark red, of drying blood—of snapping hips, of wheezing breaths, of sharp teeth and bruising fingers. Z’kila glanced away and buried his smile into auburn hair before his body could show its interest in reliving the memory. His heart gave a little skitter and he forced the thoughts out of his head. It had been some years since he had given himself to anyone that way…and he would do it again in an instant. 

Grey light was beginning to filter through the gap in the tent flap to announce the arrival of the dawn but he had no desire to move from this remarkably uncomfortable cot surrounded by canvas walls that did nothing to keep out the cold now that winter was descending and covering the land with a thin, glimmering sheen of frost each morning. 

A tap to the tent flap drew his mouth into a frown and he ignored it. He wished he could cover G’raha’s ears against the intruding sound without the risk of waking him. His companion spent so many nights awake until the early bells of the morning pouring over his books and tomes and transcripts that he seemed to sleep less than Z’kila did recently. He turned his own ears away from the sound and tried to return to sleep. It was still early. 

Another tap went ignored, followed by the soft pattering of footsteps hurrying away. An auburn ear flicked against Z’kila’s cheek and G’raha stirred with a sleepy little disgruntled groan. He stretched as much as he was able in the limited space tangled up with another’s limbs. ‘…S’not morning yet…’ 

Z’kila snorted softly. ‘Is it not? Best go and tell the sun that.’ 

That earned him a mumbled, mostly incoherent response about where he could stick the sun that had him laughing far too loudly so early in the day. Especially when he had been pretending to sleep in order to ignore someone just a moment before. ‘Sleeping wastes so much time,’ he grumbled, disentangling himself and sitting up while Z’kila continued to chortle behind him, fingers lingering on his skin as he pulled away. 

‘Or,’ Z’kila argued, ‘being awake interrupts all the bells we could be sleeping. Depends on which you prefer, I suppose.’ 

G’raha pierced him with a pointed look. ‘Says the man that denies himself sleep unless someone pins him to the bedroll.’ 

‘Even then,’ Z’kila shot back with a sardonic grin. ‘Besides, sleep is not kind to me. Before all of the…’ He gestured vaguely to the air. All the lives he’d taken in the name of self-defence, in defending others, in protecting the realm, the Star, or just simple infiltration and invasion. Cid could wax lyrical about all of the lives he had saved by taking the fight to Castrum Meridianum all he liked, but infiltration and murder was what it was and always would be at the end of the day. ‘Before I earned my title I was quite fond of being unconscious. The other Scions liked to complain about how long I would sleep in of a morning.’ 

Although G’raha hummed in acknowledgement of Z’kila’s words, he was staring at the opposite wall and rubbing idly at his right eye. The other, the one coloured cyan, had the glazed, faraway look of someone remembering something that had for many years been forgotten about. Z’kila quietened and let him think. He had fallen into that look more and more often lately though he claimed his eye wasn’t hurting him. 

He sighed and dropped his hand. ‘I did _nothing_ yesterday,’ he whined, reaching for his notebook. 

‘Is that a new nickname for me?’ 

G’raha rolled his eyes, a reluctant grin pulling at the corners of his mouth as he turned his attention to his pages. Z’kila settled onto his back, pillowing his head with one arm with his tail trapped beneath him at an angle that, while not painful, would keep him uncomfortable enough to keep his doze sleepless. 

The scratching of quill on paper interspersed with the light clinking on the inkwell was so rhythmic and repetitive that it turned somewhat soothing. Toeing the line of unconsciousness, Z’kila wondered what he could have possibly uncovered in his own mind without the aid of a tome or transcript to demand so much scribbling. 

‘…Do you think the Tower’s previous stasis was the work of Amon alone or a capability built into the structure itself?’ G’raha asked without warning, his voice quiet and musing like he was talking to himself. Shaken from rest Z’kila opened one eye to look up at his face, the vane of his quill brushing soft lips. 

‘Both, very possibly. Or neither.’ Z’kila sat up and rested his chin on G’raha’s shoulder to look down at his notes but he had turned to a blank page. ‘Could very well be some system or ability we aren’t aware or capable of yet.’ 

G’raha hummed. 

‘Does it matter?’ 

‘Probably not. But then again… it could.’ 

Z’kila frowned and took a breath to ask what he was thinking but another, firmer tap on the flap of their tent jostled them both out of their respective thoughts. ‘Z’kila, G’raha,’ came Cid’s voice, sounding like a father about to scold two adolescents. ‘I know you have fantastic hearing between you but that does not make the rest of us deaf. We can hear you talking in there.’ 

A huff and a grimace between them and Z’kila swung his legs off the cot, going to the flap and pulling it wide while naked as the day of his birth. Behind him G’raha slammed his notebook shut and set it in his lap, hunching over it. The young hyuran researcher released a soft yelp and covered her eyes. Cid regarded him with a raised eyebrow, neither amused nor disconcerted. 

‘What might be so urgent?’ Z’kila demanded with a forced smile. 

‘We’re ready to test opening the portal. I thought it best to send a message down to you but you ignored my messenger.’ A glance down at the rolanberry red woman at his flank. ‘Regardless, we would appreciate your presence.’ 

Behind him Z’kila heard the slight creaking of the cot as G’raha shifted. ‘I need time to contact my group.’

‘It may well not work, in which case you are better off not rallying them just yet,’ Cid argued. ‘Should our predictions prove correct then you can leave to gather them then. As long as the covenant between the Tower and the Cloud of Darkness remains we should be able to keep the portal open, though I request you don’t leave us waiting overlong lest we encourage a premature voidsent invasion.’ He glanced up and down Z’kila’s form. ‘I must also request you at least put some trousers on.’ 

Z’kila hesitated, his ears lowering a fraction. Just last night G’raha had admitted wanting the portal to take longer to open. At the risk of the Cloud’s invasion, it would mean the Tower could stay unsealed for just a little more time. Fate was cruel indeed if their expedition should come to an end the very next morning. 

‘We will join you shortly.’ He let the flap fall closed between them and listened for their retreating footsteps before he turned to his companion. ‘The cloud must have heard you last night,’ he said, aiming for light-hearted teasing that came out somehow more melancholy. G’raha didn’t smile, nor made any indication to have heard at all. Z’kila frowned. ‘I know the Tower means a great deal to you but at least the world won’t end in a storm of darkness and voidsent this way.’ 

‘Yet…’ G’raha murmured, so quiet he seemed to be in something of a daze. Then he shook himself out of it and set his notebook aside. ‘Best not keep them waiting, I suppose.’ 

As much as he wanted to ask, Z’kila let him be. With their backs turned to one another they made themselves presentable in silence. He didn’t have the intelligence to comprehend what might be going on in G’raha’s head or why sealing the Tower caused such personal pain for him, wishing simply to be able to do or say something to ease it. Even if only slightly. Z’kila yanked the buckles of his bracers tight and eyed the fraying leather straps, the stained cloth and the worn brass. He would need new battle gear soon. The stench of voidsent ichor was harder and harder to be rid of every time and he suspected that heading straight into their homeworld wouldn’t help matters. 

‘Shall we?’ G’raha asked, ducking out of the tent with his bow and quiver slung over one shoulder before Z’kila had chance to respond. He hesitated to follow, the churn of concern in his gut sparking with the beginnings of dread. 

‘ _…Hydaelyn’s Chosen cares for this one._ ’ 

Z’kila flinched, the primordial and alien words entering straight into his brain to make perfect sense a moment before the little dragonling popped into existence right by his ear. ‘I thought you were to watch and listen, not point out the obvious,’ he mumbled back through gritted teeth. Midgardsormr’s much smaller vessel didn’t seem to be visible to anyone else; he had appeared in a room half-filled with Scions the day before and no one so much as blinked. But they did look at Z’kila oddly when he started answering. 

‘ _It intrigues me to see the one your kind name_ **_hero_ ** _succumb to such base and beast-like instincts._ ’ 

‘Then I suggest you avert your eyes next time,’ Z’kila snapped, swiping a hand at the tiny dragon in the attempt to get him to disappear back to wherever he went. Instead he simply swooped down to cling to Z’kila’s shoulder.

‘ _And you plan to open a bridge to the Thirteenth,_ ’ Midgardsormr went on, paying no heed to Z’kila’s words whatsoever. ‘ _I find I may see thee come to harm before the day’s end without Her feeble protection._ ’ 

Z’kila set his jaw and smacked the tent flap out of the way, following in G’raha’s wake where he could no longer dignify the dragon with a response. His companion walked several paces ahead, his chin high and his gaze on the looming spires of the Tower. 

‘ _Thou are quite sure of thine ability without Her blessing?_ ’ 

‘Quite,’ Z’kila hissed and lengthened his pace. 

At the summit of the Tower the Ironworks’ predictions proved correct and the portal was torn open anew, a deeply dark shape in the fabric of reality that wreaked havoc on the senses and leaked the most disturbing aether that made Z’kila’s fur stand on end. Truly the very idea of stepping _into_ it was not a tempting one, especially with the weight of the Father of Dragons and what he had done to him quite literally on his shoulders. 

G’raha’s mood did not lift exactly but shifted, the dazed and unfocused air about him turning into a fixation on the portal. Z’kila didn’t know whether to be relieved by the change or more concerned. 

‘As I said before, the bridge should hold for as long as Xande’s covenant remains in effect,’ Cid explained, turning to Z’kila. ‘But that does not mean we want it to remain so for longer than necessary. It is impossible to tell what you might find on the other side but I pray you a swift and safe return with our friends.’

‘Friends?’ Z’kila echoed with a cocked brow.

Cid offered a shrug. ‘Friends and acquaintance. Former rival. Whatever label you think suits our loiterer best.’ 

‘I’ll need a bell or two to gather a party. The ones I have managed to secure agreements from and hopefully a few more,’ Z’kila went on, internally cringing at the sorrowfully small number of people that had agreed to this particular venture. Apparently the idea of stepping into the Void was spoke less of adventure and treasure and more of almost-certain death. 

‘Very well,’ Cid agreed. ‘I believe you have an engagement to keep with the elites of Ul’dah soon, and I would rather not have to tell the Antecedent that you have gone missing in another world so let’s hope you aren’t gone too many days. I doubt our linkshells will carry through the portal.’ 

_Missing without Hydaelyn’s blessing,_ the tiny claws digging into the leather of his chest piece reminded him. Aloud Z’kila said, ‘That gives me three days. Let’s hope the entire Void is smaller than Syrcus Tower.’ 

‘Or just the Cloud’s domain,’ G’raha corrected idly, the first he’d spoken since his lesson on the unknown rebellion against the Emperor’s attempt to bring the wrath of the sun down on his people and let the darkness and voidsent of the Thirteenth consume this Star as well. If not for Xande’s haste in the face of such revolt then the earthquake of the Fourth Umbral Calamity might never have happened and the Star would have simply been destroyed. Z’kila couldn’t say that it was an entire failure in that regard. G’raha cleared his throat then and said, ‘Might I join you in Revenant’s Toll?’

‘Of course,’ Z’kila answered. G’raha didn’t usually ask. He had already assumed they would go together. 

The descent was silent, each of them wrapped in their own thoughts. As much as Z’kila wished the dragon on his shoulder would bugger off, he couldn’t very well say anything or try to swipe him away without drawing G’raha’s attention. Besides, as much as he wanted to pry open that brilliant mind and find out what was troubling him exactly so he could fix it, Z’kila was struggling to keep his own head on straight with the thought of stepping into the Void with massively underwhelming numbers on his side. The lack of a protective blessing simply made it all the more difficult to stomach. 

‘I would like to come with you into the World of Darkness,’ G’raha said as they reached the stone staircase of the Lower Rings. 

Z’kila sighed. ‘Raha-’

‘It isn’t all fun and games, I know, I remember. It’s real and dangerous and we might not come back, I know.’ He stopped and turned a wide, earnest gaze on Z’kila, a step above him so that their eyes might meet on the same level. ‘But I wasn’t asking your permission. Every single instinct in my body is telling me to join you through the rift. Whatever answers I need, I _know_ I’ll find them there.’ He set his jaw, eyes hard on the verge of a glare. ‘I will follow you regardless of what you say, Kila, but I would rather be at your side than at your back.’ 

Just a day ago Z’kila’s hackles would have risen and he would have told him flatly _no,_ and asked Biggs to restrain him until his return. These ventures were difficult enough without having to protect another as well as himself and every adventurer he appointed knew that they were ultimately on their own if things got difficult. With G’raha, it was different. Z’kila couldn’t just let him _be on his own_ somewhere like the Void. But G’raha was a talented marksman in his own right, and currently no less protected than Z’kila was. 

‘ _Thou would deny thyself aid to protect this one?_ ’ 

_Shut up,_ Z’kila shot back mentally with no idea whether Midgardsormr could hear him or not. He would deny himself aid ten times over if it meant keeping G’raha safe and happy, but this time keeping him safe may well not let him be happy. After this, once the covenant with the Cloud was broken, this adventure would be over. And with G’raha looking more animated than he had done all morning, he couldn’t bring himself to say no and deny him the one thing he had wanted over anything else since their unorthodox meeting in the Twelveswood. ‘…Alright,’ he relented at length, his shoulders and tail sagging. The dragonling clung tighter. 

G’raha blinked. ‘…Oh. I was expecting a fight.’ 

‘We’ll have plenty of fighting on our hands in the Void. We don’t need to start now. But-’ He fixed G’raha with a firm stare of his own- ‘when we’re moving, stay close to me. When we’re fighting, stay far away from me. Please.’ 

A beat of tense silence between them before G’raha relented. ‘Okay. But I won’t have you putting yourself at risk for me.’

Z’kila scoffed and smiled a twisted sort of grimace. ‘I’m afraid that isn’t up to you.’ He continued down the steps before they could descend into an argument. The idea of G’raha with him in the World of Darkness had him sick to his stomach, but so was the idea of leaving him here miserable and forever regretful. 

The ride up to Revenant’s Toll was silent, conversation impossible while pushing two chocobos at a gallop along the road. Firefoot stretched out her neck and trilled at her companion, enjoying the race that the other loaned chocobo seemed entirely oblivious to. Z’kila had hoped that the fast, jolting pace would make Midgardsormr pop back into whatever dimensional rift he liked to rest in but instead he simply swooped alongside them, keeping pace in spite of his short wingspan. Firefoot, at least, seemed aware of his presence, pecking at his tail when he flew too close to her beak even if she couldn’t outright see him. 

The dragonling returned to Z’kila’s shoulder, much to his silent chagrin, once he dismounted in the Aetheryte Plaza. He tossed Firefoot’s reins to G’raha. ‘I’ll just be a moment,’ he said and jogged straight into the Seventh Heaven. He had told everyone that was even remotely interested—or at least those that hadn’t looked at him like he was insane—to await further instructions there. 

‘Ah, here we go,’ came the familiar voice an instant after he set his hand on the door to push it open. At the table by the fireplace the dragoon veteran stood from his seat, reaching for his lance propped up against the wall behind him. Either he had been expecting Z’kila or he had spent every day since the request was made sitting exactly like this, in full armour with his helm on the table. ‘About time.’ 

A handful of others looked up as Z’kila surveyed the tavern. Seven of them. Just seven. His heart sank. ‘Apologies for the wait,’ he said, flashing his teeth in a smile to hide the soul-crushing disappointment. ‘There were a few, shall we say, technological obstacles to overcome.’ 

‘Z’kila,’ said the Keeper conjurer, tossing her hair over one shoulder as she approached. She shaped his name like it was the punchline of a joke. ‘Allow me to introduce you to a colleague of mine,’ she said went on, sweeping an arm back to the tall fair-haired Seeker trying to down what looked to be a near-full tankard of ale while getting to his feet. ‘I would tell you his name but I know you would prefer it if I didn’t.’ 

‘How kind of you,’ he answered, ignoring her facetious tone. Her comrade kept his hair pulled back in a mess of a ponytail that entirely juxtaposed with the elegant white flare of his robes. He banged his tankard back onto the bar with a satisfied sigh and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Z’kila had expected someone graceful, ethereal almost, very much like the Keeper. This man was the opposite. 

‘The Warrior of Light!’ he greeted with a broad grin brighter than the low winter sunshine and a wiggle of fair ears. One eye was a warm, friendly brown, the colour of sweet honey. The other was a strikingly pale blue. ‘A pleasure to meet you at last. I heard of your desperation for comrades in this venture and I simply couldn’t say _no._ ’ He stepped in close to Z’kila, took hold of his hand and shook it so rigorously he was nearly shaken straight off his feet. 

‘My thanks,’ Z’kila said for lack of anything else to say in the face of such beaming cheeriness. He was used to having to look up at people of other races, hyuran, elezen and roegadyn alike all towering over him most of the time, but he was not used to having to look up at one of his own. This Seeker must have stood over six feet tall at least. He hoped the displeasure didn’t show on his face. ‘I fear there may not be much in the way of treasure on this excursion.’ 

The tall blond snorted. ‘A pair of white mages in pursuit of treasure over the desire to help others would be poor choices indeed.’ 

Z’kila pricked his ears at that. He had assumed the beautiful Keeper woman to be a conjurer and her colleague the same. He hadn’t heard of miqo’te being allowed the mantle of white mage before; that honour was reserved for the padjals. As far as he understood it anyway, lowly dagger-wielder that he was. ‘And the rest of you? Certain you want to follow me into the Void?’ 

‘A job started should be finished,’ said the thaumaturge, standing on a chair beside the dragoon with arms folded. 

‘Indeed,’ said the dragoon himself. ‘I brought along a friend of mine with a fandangled new invention of a weapon from Ishgard. Calls it a _pistol._ I don’t know if it’ll be any good but this venture might prove a good test for it.’

His friend was a tall but otherwise mousy-looking elezen wearing green-tinted goggles above a permanent blush. Z’kila had seen a pistol before, common as they were among Lominsans. The Admiral herself favoured one. But this elezen’s, he explained through a series of stutters and stammers, came with some kind of aetheric transformer to enhance its ammunition. Z’kila simply nodded along and hoped he wouldn’t kill any of his precious few party members by accident.

They were joined by the addition of a young highlander woman trained in the same style of hand-to-hand combat as Yda and an older midlander woman with some skill in the arcane. He couldn’t tell if they were the most altruistic people on the planet or if they both simply had a death wish. They were both grim-faced at the prospect of stepping through the rift but adamant all the same. 

‘Right,’ Z’kila sighed once hasty introductions had been observed. ‘With myself and my companion we number nine. Not as many as I had hoped for but more than I expected. I hope you all understand the danger of simply not knowing what we will find because you have less than a bell to change your minds.’ He paused. No one moved. ‘Very well, nine it is. Let’s go.’ 

He turned to leave and walked straight into a silver breastplate. The steel clanked with the buckles of his bracers and he practically bounced off it, stumbling back a step with a blink. He had to look up, and then up again at the towering mountain of a miqo’te that was as imposing as he was handsome. If the ears of raven-wing black encompassed by a shining silver circlet hadn’t given him away he could quite easily be mistaken for a highlander. Z’kila felt his own ears lower, his tail clamp down. 

‘Am I late?’ he asked in a low, rumbling voice and revealing a set of white teeth, every one of them filed to sharp points. 

‘Uh,’ said Z’kila. 

Eyes the colour of the Shroud’s springtime pink roses crinkled in amusement. A thick, unsightly scar crossed the bridge of his nose. ‘Lost Iris sends her regards. I hear you are in need of someone to head the charge. Might I offer my services?’ 

Z’kila snapped his teeth back together. ‘Why?’ he challenged, eyeing the long blade at his hip and the top ridge of a kite shield peeking over his shoulders. ‘Just out of the goodness of your heart? I can believe that of the white mages, less so of a Sultansworn too far from Ul’dah to be of much use to the Sultana.’

‘Well, you certainly have the bark they say the Warrior of Light possesses,’ said the mountainous miqo’te. ‘We’ll yet see if you have the bite. Truth be told I thought you would be taller.’ 

‘A great hulking mass of muscle would be rather detrimental to my style of combat,’ Z’kila spat back, ears lowering. As far as Seekers went he _was_ tall. At least he used to think so. ‘If you are coming, then let us be off. Time is something of the essence.’ 

‘You might want to give us the opportunity to procure some provisions before you march us all off back into the Tower,’ said the Keeper, one hand coming to rest at her waist. ‘Potions, rations, medicinal herbs and the like. If you would like to make your preparations there, we shall meet you within the bell.’ 

Z’kila nodded back to her, cast his eyes over the lot of them once more and turned on his heel with a sigh, wondering how many of them would be lost to the Void. 

G’raha was chewing on his thumb staring into space when Z’kila stalked back to him, slouching back in the saddle while Firefoot’s clawing at the flagstones went ignored. He glanced over only when he felt a tugging on her reins and fixed Z’kila with a curious look. ‘Did you find no one?’ 

‘Including you and I, we make ten,’ said Z’kila, swinging up onto his chocobo’s back. ‘They’ll meet us there within the bell. Let’s go.’ A captured moment where he could breathe and try not to think about the very real possibility of impending doom, either his own or the entire Star’s, would be nice. They turned back down the road at a walk. With little else to do and time to spare, however little and however precious, he couldn’t see the need to race back to the Tower and spend it staring at the vision-distorting portal. He distracted himself by complaining to G’raha about the eight other people they were to bring with them. G’raha watched his face and listened with lowered ears. 

‘…I can trust the skill of three of them,’ Z’kila said. ‘ _Three._ The ones I took into the Labyrinth and the Tower. I know they have the skill to fight and protect themselves. But the others? One of them is coming as a weapons’ testing exercise. Can you imagine? Coming into the _literal Void_ to _test_ a weapon. I couldn’t say-’

G’raha leaned over, grabbed him by the collar and slammed their lips together in a bruising, punishing kiss. A muted yip of surprise from the back of his throat disappeared into G’raha’s mouth. It was a kiss that ignited every spark in his body, that brought about a roar of want in his mind that tried to stamp out the nagging voice of concern that this was less a kiss of desire than one that tasted of desperation, of fear. 

They slid from their saddles, deaf to the indignant chirrups of their birds left to wait for them on the road. Behind a twisted hunk of metal from an airship’s hull, Z’kila was vaguely reminded of the night they walked drunk down this road. Kissed behind this very tower of scrap, mayhap, but his memory of that night was hazy. G’raha barely let him pull away to breathe, let alone speak. 

Z’kila would indulge him this, enjoyed the contact and affection too much to question it or let him go. He was good at distracting him. G’raha, always his distraction from the worst parts of the world. 

But the dexterous fingers were at his belt buckle and he as much as he wanted to simply bask in whatever pleasure his lover wanted to give or take from him, he had to be somewhat sensible even when he didn’t want to be. 

‘What are you doing, Raha?’ he managed to ask around panting breaths, one hand coming up to cup his jaw and stroke along the edge of his cheekbone with a thumb. He needed to know what was causing this strange mood, needed to be able to make it better. Even as he spoke G’raha pulled his belt loose and slipped fingers into his waistband to grasp him. 

‘I want you,’ he answered, voice deep and gravelly even as he leaned into the touch. 

‘…Right now?’ 

Speaking was difficult through the glimmer of pleasure sparking up and down his spine, tingling at the back of his neck and all the way down to the tip of his tail. Thinking of anything other than the blazing points of contact even more so, remembering why he should say no near impossible. 

‘You said we have time.’ 

‘Not that much time. Not enough to do this properly.’ 

‘Then let’s not do this _properly._ ’ G’raha’s glare was firm but desperate, the lines of his eyes pinched at the corners. ‘I want to come with you through the portal, I _need_ to, but I also know there’s a chance one or both of us or nobody will be coming back. I don’t want to waste a moment not being as close to you as I can. Love me. _Please._ ’ 

Somewhere behind them the dragon popped out of existence. Z’kila barely registered it, torn between the all-consuming desire to give G’raha what he wanted and doing the sensible thing of saying no and saving their energy and their bodies the unnecessary excess strain to give them the best chance. But they could do everything they could, every preparation in place and still die. And Z’kila could think of no sweeter final memory than one like this, with breaths, bodies and pleasure shared. 

‘…I don’t have anything,’ he admitted in a whisper. 

G’raha refused to release him, giving him a gentle tug that made his breath catch as he reached into an inner pocket and pressed a half-empty vial into Z’kila’s palm with the impatience of a starving man. Then he reached up to grab a fistful of bronze hair and dragged him back into a breath-stealing kiss. 

Z’kila would have happily kissed him for bells. Would drown in them without so much as a gasp for air if that was what G’raha wanted. But time was not on their side and so he reached for the other’s belt, pulling the buckle loose before he spun G’raha around to brace his hands against the twisted metal. He yanked down the waistband along with the smalls just enough to give him access with two oiled fingers. The other arm he wrapped around his lover’s shoulders, holding him flush against his chest. He longed to be rid of their clothes. Longed to feel his skin, his heartbeat under his palm. He kissed along the back of his shoulders and up the column of his throat, easing him open with as much haste as he dared 

‘Please don’t be gentle with me,’ G’raha whispered through shallow panting, head leaning to one side to expose his neck. ‘I don’t think I could bear it right now…’ 

‘Raha, I don’t want to hurt you-’

A clawed hand snapped back to grab at his ear and _pulled._ ‘I want it to hurt,’ G’raha hissed. ‘I want to feel you. I want to feel you tomorrow and the day after and the next. Kila, _please._ ’ 

If ever a man could sound demanding as he begged, it would be G’raha Tia. Z’kila’s arousal throbbed as desire and concern warred in his mind, as the want to love and cherish and make him feel only _good_ battled with the new images his words brought to mind. It was a terrible idea to do as he asked, to send him into the Void sore and aching and distracted. But in the moment it seemed worse to deny him. 

With one last selfish nuzzle into his neck, Z’kila’s kisses turned to bruising, stinging love bites. He thrust inside with minimal preparation and while G’raha clenched and flinched against the intrusion, his expression turned to pure satisfaction. Z’kila pinned his wrists to the metal above his head, yanked on his tail as had been done to him before and bit down on one ear. With only the nearby nixes to hear them, G’raha moaned his pleasure at such rough treatment, encouraging more with garbled praise and nonsense words. 

Z’kila released his tail to take hold of his length, shifting his angle to stab into his most sensitive spot, thrusting him into his fist with every snap and roll of his hips. G’raha found his release in surprising silence, trembling with it as he clenched down around him and spent across the ground below them. Sweating, panting and close to the edge himself, Z’kila rocked him through it while his mind whirled through the possible ways he could take care of himself without the necessary time needed to clean up properly. 

Sensing the direction of his thoughts, G’raha wriggled one wrist free of his grasp to reach back and grip his hip. ‘Inside,’ he demanded, flushed and breathless as he glared over his shoulder. 

Z’kila’s head swam. ‘But cleaning you-’

‘I don’t care. I want you. All of you.’ 

A stronger man might have been able to resist, might have been able to stay sensible. But Z’kila was not strong, not when it came to this short redheaded brat. Unable to keep up with the roughness G’raha so desperately craved, he wrapped both arms tightly around him in a backwards embrace, G’raha’s back pressed flush to Z’kila’s chest with his face buried in a warm neck. His lover pressed back to meet him with every thrust in spite of any discomfort he might have been suffering and it took mere moments for Z'kila to join him in the ecstasy of climax, spilling into G’raha’s welcoming depths with his name on his lips in a muffled, desperate prayer. 

**Author's Note:**

> Want to learn more about Z'kila? [Click here!](https://zkilatia.carrd.co/) (Warning: Spoilers)  
> You can find me on Twitter @blaze_eyes ♥


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